The Wifi Kettle Saga, Or When The IoT Goes Wrong

Smart devices promise to make life easier by automating previously laborious tasks. But British data specialist Mark Rittman got exactly the opposite with his Smarter iKettle, a wifi-enabled take on the humble kettle that turned boiling water for a cup of tea into an 11 hour saga.

ikettleTold through a series of tweets, Rittman's tale of a smart kettle failing to be, well, smart, started at around 9am. All Rittman wanted was command the kettle to boil water via companion app, only he ended up receiving messages to "connect to kettle network before proceeding." Being a man with some knowledge of coding Rittman proceeded to investigate the code powering the iKettle, and discovered the base station was actually failing to communicate with the kettle itself!

Three hours into the investigation failed to produce any results-- if anything the situation got arguably worse, as popular Twitter account Internet of Shit discovered Rittman's story, slowing down Rittman's progress. An hour later Rittman revealed how the iKettle was insisting for more network calibration, and further digging into the code revealed how the kettle lacks software allowing integration with a number of smart home control platforms, including SmartThings, IFTTT and HomeKit.

What was the data specialist to do? Build his own integration functionality based on Amazon Echo, obviously. Which he managed to finish at around midnight, by which time his connected lights decided to download a firmware update. This left Rittman with a blacked out house in which to use his smart kettle.

The moral of the story? The Internet of Things is all well and good, but the most basic of devices-- such as the humble kettle-- might better off without connected smarts. That, and more average customers might not be as tolerant as to create their own integration functionality should their purchases fail to do what they were supposed to do...

Go Mark Rittman on Twitter

Go English man Spends 11 Hours Trying to Make a Cup of Tea With Wifi Kettle (The Guardian)