Connected kettles boil over, spill Wi-Fi passwords over London A security man has mapped and hacked insecure connected kettles across London, proving they can leak WiFi passwords. The iKettle is designed to save users precious seconds spent waiting for water to boil by allowing the kitchen staple to be turned on using a smartphone app. Pen Test Partners bod Ken Munro says hackers can …
I am old enough to remember how the Goblin Teasmade was supposed to revolutionise society.
My thoughts were that the effort saved was more than offset by the amount of effort involved in making sure that the device was kept hygienically spotless.
With the current ikettle, surely there's not much point in the facility for boiling a kettle if it doesn't have enough water in it to start with, which means planning ahead to fill it with water beforehand.
Ah yes, I remember those, although I always managed to avoid owning one.
Always thought that having this monstrosity sat just beside your bed at head level, steaming, gurgling and spitting hot water around the place was a damn fine way to ensure that you quickly got out of your pit so as to get yourself away from it before you ended up with 3rd degree burns.
Not to mention the one my parents had, which also had a built-in alarm and light, leading not only to the steaming and gurgling, but to a steaming gurgling spitting device that you specifically had to whack to turn off the alarm, thus risking even more scalding hot water flying around and general contact burns to your hands.
A teasmade is not that different to my "Bean to cup" coffee maker, fill the hopper with beans, fill the tank with water, set the timer and it will have a fresh pot of coffee ready when you wake up.
You'd have to be insane to put it on your bedside table, although the grinder would certainly wake you up.
Depends how long you leave it.
http://www.diganddemo.com/Portals/103423/images/poolwestnile%20copy.png
LOL at that.
Boiling the same water several times must also affect its mineral content in ways that are detrimental to what your palate is used to.
I wasn't really thinking about multiple boils, more that it's just sitting in the pipe or just sitting in the kettle and how little difference that could make. If you are in an area where the chlorination is detectable, leaving it standing in the kettle will outgas the chlorine. Maybe boiling it "fresh" will too.
But, since you mention multiple boils of the water, I wonder if that really makes any difference? And if it does, does it matter where the water came from in the first place? Many years ago our local water came from an underground reservoir and was "hard", ie from under the limestone hills These days it comes from a stonking great man made reservoir filled by rain and whatever is picked up as it runs on/over/under the ground to get there but is not hard. No kettle fur here any more.
"if it doesn't have enough water in it to start with, which means planning ahead to fill it with water beforehand."
Plus once you've been informed your kettle is boiled you're still going to have to get off your arse to pour it. Unless you have an iButler to do that for you.
Talk about technology for its own sake. This really takes the rich tea biscuit.
They're still selling Teasmades and Goblin is looking at cracking the North American market.
We had a very early model years ago; it actually worked quite well for what it was. Obviously you didn't put it anywhere near the bed, it was both an automatic tea maker and an industrial accident generating machine. The newer ones appear to be almost safe to have at one's bedside. I'm just not sure that a 400ml teapot is going to be large enough to start two people of a morning. They're also a hassle to set up and so on but you typically own one because its an object d'art, they go with the plaster ducks and brass pictures, plastic covers on the sofas and so on.
(Anyway, I'm retired, more or less, so I don't see the point in having an alarm clock.)(Or rather, using one of the things.)
(I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would want a WiFi enabled kettle or coffee machine.)
They're still selling Teasmades
Back in the 80's I remember our residential training college having them in the student rooms. I suppose the idea was that the combination of an alarm that could wake the dead, and a cup of builder-strength tea, would get even the laziest students awake and out of bed in time for the first lecture of the day.
I really hate to admit it, but I have a horrible feeling you're right. There are plenty of out of the box chips used in electronics. Once it becomes standard for them to have wifi, it costs nothing for a manufacturer to add a wizzy new feature.
Mines the kettle wrapped in silver foil.
Just because it may be internet-capable doesn't mean you actually have to connect it.
I'm sure even the most ardent Shoreditch IoT TNT (to borrow Dabbsie's terminology) wouldn't product a device that could only be controlled by an app rather than the old fashioned way, by hand?
Or am I being horribly ancient and naïve here?
"Just because it may be internet-capable doesn't mean you actually have to connect it."
Companies employing remote workers will probably demand that they use connected kettles, just so the boss can check up on the number of tea breaks they're taking.
At least beer cans don't have an internet connection ----------------------------->
Somehow the same word came to my mind too. Even before I finished reading the original post you replied to.
Every time you pop, your insurance company/local government will get statistics on your drinking and your insurance bonus will go down or your tax rate will go up. Moreover, your spouse and family GP will get notified and will have an option to remotely lock down your beer cans to prevent further popping. The only way to acces the beer will be through your mobile application. If you try to circumvent any access restrictions, i.e. punch a hole throught the can, and alert will be made and all the remaining cans will be denaturated instantly.
The only bright side will be that you’ll get more stocks delivered from Amazon before you run out of beer. Then again, you’ll only get crappies beer, since the delivery algorithm will always negotiate the best deal for you.
Bury me six feet undeground before that happens. Dead or alive.
"At least beer cans don't have an internet connection "
The fridge was the first household device to be internet connected. That will come as part of the mandatory electronics to allow the electricity company to shut it down as part of their dynamic supply regulation.
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>Just because it may be internet-capable doesn't mean you actually have to connect it.
Keep thinking companies will let that stop them from data mining you. You are already getting data mined if you have a newish car and you take it into the dealer (through both black box and often GPS/Navigation system). It won't be long until your shit will be connected to data networks whether you like it or not (at least in the US). Guess its time to get to work on those Faraday cages.
@AMBxx
Maybe iFixit can do a tear down of these lovely devices and show us where the wire cutter goes to disable this crap. Or where the chip that needs "disabling" might reside.
I get the feeling our houses will begin to look a bit like Sam Lowry's house. Time for Harry Tuttle? I'm beginning to think so...
For an example, look at televisions. All I want from it is a good quality display and reliability. If I want to watch YouTube on it or Skype, I will connect one of my devices that does those things. UNIX philosophy - do one thing and do it well.
Except that I can't find any modern TVs that are like that. Everyone of them comes loaded with an OS and a pile of software that I don't trust to be patched and kept up to date now, let alone two or three years from now. The manufacturers have all decided that Skype / YouTube / FireFox v.27 is the vital market differentiator without which their product will sink like a stone.
As a consequence, if I want to get a 4K display right now, I have to buy something that three years from now is going to be a complete liability. And to the poster that says "just don't connect it", that gets harder every year as the manufacturers WANT to make it harder to not connect by tying as much functionality into connectivity as possible. That way they can "add value" and get your data.
Y'know, I see a business opportunity here - refurbishing and hoarding dumb devices against the day when (or, admittedly, IF) the great unwashed finally get fed up of crapware-riddled shinies that demand two cows and your first-born son to even let you switch them on. I guess the biggest risk is whether that day will ever come; I'm not sure I'd bet the farm on it.
In the meantime, I'll just continue with my Luddite ways - no idiot lantern, analogue radio, downloaded and ripped music, dead-tree books and read-only offline snap-shots of interesting web pages before they get, er, 'corrected'.
Just call me No 48. I won't wear, acknowledge or respond to it though.
" because within a few years you won't find any gear without it anymore"
Probably not true for low-level devices like toasters and kettles.
Likely true for high end devices like fridges and washers.
Still, companies will respond to pushback because if enough people say no they will be seen as a market opportunity.
Here in NZ, almost all the banks started pushing the NFC payment pay-wave stuff. For a while you could not get a non-NFC credit card. Then people started switching banks and pretty soon it became an option.
That's how the free market works.... enough people demand the old manual kettle and it will keep being available.
The thing about "low level" devices is that the typical developer will see them as an ideal target because they are "stand alone". (Aside from the issue of feeding them with raw materials). For instance I'm sure some benevolent organisations will grant money to developers who have ideas to make life easier for people with disabilities.
Expect to see lots of examples of such portable things at next year's Ideal Home Show - the ideal place for suppliers to get spur of the moment sales, and for buyers to think wtf was I thinking of when I bought this?
The idea of using toast as a canvas for weather forecasts and QR codes (mentioned earlier) sounds like a good one for developers to exploit. (What is it about toast that inspires geeks? Who remembers the screen saver?).
Both?
This is one of the reasons I decided to upgrade my home WI-FI to something more commercial grade where I can create multiple SSIDs and put the insecure stuff on a separate SSID and it will not have any ability to impact the rest of my network.
Also I can set up alerts to see who connects to that network... as well as limit the connections to a white list. (So you can see the network, learn the password, but can't easily connect to the network. )
.I have a digital kettle. Mine's either on or off.
And mine's smartphone enabled. Admittedly I sometimes need three or four smartphones before I manage to hit the switch but there's plenty of ammo in the office.
"Why the fuck does a kettle need a connection to the internet. Or your fridge, vacuum, washing machine, Why? WHY??"
Because a bunch of social inept 20 somethings who don't get out enough and frankly need to get laid, think its cool to have everything connected regardless of whether the functionality of the device would benefit in the slightest from having network connectivity. I suspect with a kettle you physically need to fill and pour anyway so need to be close by, the answer to that is no. Though I do wonder if the people who signed off on this actually knew what a kettle does - probably mummy makes all their tea for them.
"Though I do wonder if the people who signed off on this actually knew what a kettle does"
Yes but yes but yes but yes but........
...no. You're right. Somebody has to be there to fill it and pour it.
So, um, I'm having trouble coming up with even one business-plan-viable reason for why this product exists.
If it's connected, you can put an "i" in front of its name.
If you put an "i" in front of its name, the iSheep will buy it.
The iSheep are a large group who are happy to pay twice as much as something's actually worth for a version with an "i" in front of its name.
So by merely changing your product into an iProduct by adding some cheap, off-the-shelf electronics, its value is doubled.
(Just checked. iKettles seem to be about 80 quid for a very ordinary, stainless steel kettle. About 30 quid's worth without the "i". I'll bet the additional circuit board cost them all of 50p too.....)
"Because a bunch of social inept 20 somethings who don't get out enough and frankly need to get laid" -- wow, that's seems a bit unnecessary.
I don't know what the product managers (and management in general) are like at the place you work at, but where I work the people who get to make these sorts of decisions are my age (40+). I don't think this is something you can blame on the younger generation. We make software, NOT kettles by the way!
"Why the fuck does a kettle need a connection to the internet. Or your fridge, vacuum, washing machine, Why? WHY??"
I hate to be "that guy" but these things don't have a connection to the internet. The app only works on-network.
Now, more interesting will be when these types of device become proper commodities and it is worth the exposure for mass-market manufacturers to start including software capable of dialing home.
...but neither does anybody NEED to read el reg on their connected laptop or phone. That doesn't mean that some people won't see perceived benefits in having one - maybe they can set it going from the bathroom while they are getting ready in the morning, I don't know.
As a designer, if the cost of the components required for internet connection is low enough, why not build them into your latest mouse trap.
As a designer, if the cost of the components required for internet connection is low enough, why not build them into your latest mouse trap.
1) Because form should follow function, 2) if it introduces more problems than it solves, then it cannot be justified and should not be tolerated, and 3) because it is inelegant.
Marketing speak says that you MUST, repeat MUST go out and buy a new connected kettle TODAY!
How else will you be able to boast about it to your friends on the internet from your Mom's basement? (ok, I'm kidding a bit here)
Even if every kettle on the market comes with a Wi-Fi connection actually configuring it to use your Wi-Fi router is another thing. An kettle of mine that has this feature can go whistle (wot boiling kettler are supposed to do ok!) until the cows come home before I let it connect to the internet.
Before you know it you will receive emails from the manufacturer saying
"I'm sorry Dave you have been using your kettle too much. Unless you pay us another £100 to unlock the device it will now take 20 minutes to come to the boil rather than two."
Or words to that effect heralding the advent of User CALS for domestic appliances.
Sorry, no no no no no no no no no and NO.
"Before you know it you will receive emails from the manufacturer... "
I understand the dread from the part of the savvy user/consumer of having bits of kit accessible from the internet, even more so if they can autonomously connect 'home'. However there can be reasons to connect bits of kit around the home so that they can talk to each other. Maybe I want to control some consumption patterns myself instead of having the electric company throttle usage for me. Maybe for some people it's just cool to be able to put the kettle on remotely, what's wrong with toys and having a bit of fun?
Seems to me that a key piece of technology in the future is going to be a powerful and easily configurable home router. If people (especially younger ones who have grown up with always-on connectivity) are willing to control their kettles and fridges from their smartphone, they will also be both willing and capable to play around with their routers. All it would need is simply to identify every connected device and group them into devices that either can or cannot connect to the wider internet. Anything that needed connecting to from outside the home could be accessed securely through a properly configured VPN.
As far as I know it's already possible to get routers with inbuilt VPNs, the router I have at home already gives me a pretty good visibility of what's going on on the network if I can be bothered to look.
Maybe something for school's IT curriculum should be how to use IT properly, instead of whatever passes for IT teaching these days
The last thing I want to be doing at 9pm in the evening is to be speaking to a technician in some far-off land because my connected kettle doesn't boil.
First of all sir, let me say that I can definitely sort out your issue.
Sir, can you first of all check for me to see if the kettle is properly filled.
Yes it is
Ok sir, can you empty it out. Wait 30 seconds, then fill it up again.
Ok
Now switch it on.
What lights do you see on your kettle?
...some time later...
Can you try loading the latest firmware for the kettle please. My coach says that this will definitely fix your issue. Logon to kettlesdirect.com and....
Nobody needs a connected kettle, this is true. But a toaster ... that's a different proposition.
Cast your mind back to 2001, when a design student from Brunel University created a toaster that burned a pattern into your toast depending on the day's weather forecast. It had 3 stencils (for sunny, rainy or cloudy) and it popped the appropriate stencil in front of your toast for the last 20 seconds of its cycle.
Here's the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1264205.stm
I think this proves several things:
- Toast is brilliant.
- It goes very well with tea (regardless of kettle type).
- There are no new ideas.
Eventually, the stencils could be changed for a more sophisticated imaging system that might be able to burn weather maps, short text messages and even adverts on to bread.
Adverts.
On your toast.
You know, I thought Delia was old fashioned by her insistence on using a gas grill for her toast. But maybe she's just seen the future (or at least the past's vision of the future).
"[...] adverts on to bread [...]"
Given the souvenirs the faithful buy for the Pope's visits then his Holiness's image on toast would be a sure fire winner. Even one of Jesus Christ himself would find a marketing niche. Transubstantiation could be made more visible.
For Satanists you could judge the heat to the point where there was real smoke or even flames in their preferred image's outline.
To all the naysayers-think about how we mock the IBM(?) expert who predicted a need for no more than five computers! Who are we to mock the prospect of a future where kettles can be switched on remotely? Although we don't realise it yet, this could be one of those paradigm shifting moments that moves humanity to a higher plane of reality-or not-this is remarkably like the over automated tech that made early 2000AD comics so much fun.
Switched on remotely?
Nah. more like 'sorry, you have used all the power allocated to your home today. Please try again tomorrow!'
i.e. Controlling your ability to use said kettle at times of peak demand. viz end of Corrie or X-Factor.
Probably better to can those shows IMHO. Ok so I'm not the target market for them but...
It's not 3 million years, that's when we meet the toaster.. but it was on the ship before the accident..
"22nd March 2077" in a clock.. and:
LISTER: March the twenty-second. That’s what - three weeks before the crew got wiped out. (Stasis Leak)
So this isn't 3 million years in the future.. it's around 60!
... a bit of research shows that a common complaint is that poor build quality (and it's £100!) causes the lid fit to deteriorate over time. At this point the kettle boils for several minutes before switching off despite the fact that it has a temperature sensor to allow you to select various lukewarm modes to avoid "burning your tea" (really?) So despite all the electronics (which would seem to allow the function to be a couple of extra lines in the firmware code) it looks like the off-switch is a conventional steam activated affair of the kind that allows current electric kettles to turn your kitchen into a sauna if the lid isn't quite on. This is bad enough on a kettle you switch on yourself, but on one that can be switched on remotely? All that technology and it doesn't have a fail-safe switch-off at 100℃ ...
For this idea to work properly, you'd need a barometer built in to the kettle, feeding it's output to the off switch.
Or if you can tolerate a slight variation in temperature they could use a GPS chip to determine the altitude. In keeping with IoT it will of course offload the GPS calculations to the cloud.
What? Why a GPS chip and offloading calculations to the cloud?
Did you miss the joke icon? I was trying a bit of Heath Robinson(*) style IoT thinking. Guess I failed :-/
(*)Rube Goldberg if you're on the other side of the Atlantic :)
[good for all American states, defaults to 100C everywhere else!]
Nope.
a) some US states, as well as countries elsewhere, have regions that are not quite at sea level.
b) even at sea level, air pressure can and will vary. You don't want to be deprived of a decent cuppa just because a low pressure front is passing through.
"For this idea to work properly, you'd need a barometer built in to the kettle, feeding it's output to the off switch."
Or, perhaps, it could use the built-in assisted GPS to determine its current location, look up the local weather report on the Internet, and then use that information to determine when the boiling point of water.
I can't imagine how anyone ever knew that water was boiling before The Internet Of Thingees arrived.
My wife bought me one for my birthday in June.
The lid is already warped so that loads of steam comes out of the top, exactly as you describe. I generally hold it down with a wooden spoon to get it to switch off.
I think I got it to work remotely once - I don't think the Android app at the time could configure the kettle so I had to borrow an iPhone to to set it up. Since then I've rebooted the router and it has not been used remotely since.
I mean, seriously? Fill kettle with cold water, hit the "on" button. Rinse teapot, and heat with hot tap water. While the water in the kettle is coming up to the boil, measure out the tea, get out the milk, eyeball the [e|voice]mail. Water boils, make the tea. Heat cup with extra boiling water. Go pee. By the time you get back from the toilet, you have the perfect cuppa. Works for me, anyway.
It's a 'worldwide compatibility' thing. Some areas have 10 amp sockets. 2.4kw at 240v is gonna be within 10 amps at 240v, and given the resistance won't change that much, slightly less at 230 or 220v.
It's why modern kettles are rarely the 3kw goodness of yore.
Side note, I wonder if that's why commercial breaks are getting longer, to give the kettle time to boil?
Or this one http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1528976.htm
Also £100 but can do different temperatures in case your not having straight black "English tea"
"OneCup Turbo" claims a cuppa's worth of water boiled in a minute.
Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole myself but strikes me as less likely to let someone borrow your network.
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1528976.htm
If you must shop at Argos, I'd rather have this one:
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2275383.htm
It's a tenth of the price and has all the important features without the pointless crap that just makes it more likely to fail. I used to have a kettle that could do different temperatures but I never used that feature and it confused any guests who tried to use it.
They were being sold off cheap on Ebuyer and I read the details as follows
Blah Blah, Big Brand, Blah Blah Blah, Stainless Steel, Blah, With built in Grill
£50
All these naysayer can save you money, as they turn their noses up at junk internet features they may actually miss the main hardware on offer. It has worked fine for a few years now, never used any of its "digital" features (unless you count the door handle).
"Nothing.
Happens all the time after popular TV shows anyway"
Yes because the National Grid control centres are primed for this and monitor TV shows for exactly this sort of thing (just in case the Strictly finals run over).
However if this were to happen at say 3am, it would cause all sorts of issues.
It shouldn't need an app, it should be smart enough to track your location via your phone and tell when you want a cup of tea.
But since you need to have known in advance you wanted tea, in order to fill it with water, couldn't you set a timer on it for when you wake up / return home from work and avoid the whole smart kettle business entirely? Thought so.
If the designers are not careful (where have we hear THAT phrase before) and through no malicious intent, things can go SNAFU in a hurry.
Why why why connect everything through the internet? What possible benefit can overarch the negatives?
Maybe I'm just a repressed Luddite.......
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