It can be difficult to convince people to buy new stuff. Sure, some like the rush of replacing their old things with new replacements, but when your old stuff works fine it’s hard to justify getting a replacement. My toaster, for example, has celebrated a decade of effectively making toast, and there has not been any reason to upgrade it, which is going to be an irritant for people in the business of selling toasters.
This is the reason for the emergence of the “internet of things,” a brave new world where everything is now connected to the internet, for the sake of some kind of invented convenience. Why use an old fashioned toaster that works fine when you can get a new, exciting toaster with a smart phone app and an internet connection? Toast will never be the same again.
There are issues with the proliferation of connected devices. One is the inherent complexity. Now you have things like juicers that can’t work without an internet connection, or light bulbs that require a phone to turn off. But the main one is security.
The issue with a lot of these “smart” products is that while the features were installed as a selling point, they’re being rushed to market and security is not a priority. Who is going to hack into a slow cooker, for example? That just means that it’s really easy to hack into that slow cooker and gain access to networks.
This has already happened, as easy to access devices lead to an internet outage in October of last year. The Mirai botnet was largely made up of things like connected cameras and TV boxes, all of which were designed to get online but had major security vulnerabilities that made them easy to infect.
Yet the idea of having everything connected has not slowed down. The recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas showcased devices such as water bottles that send notifications to your phone to tell you to drink more, or a toothbrush that has a bluetooth connection. You can get a rubber duck for bath time that is connected to the internet, which seems incredibly unnecessary at best and dangerous at worst. Not going to say that someone’s financial information will be compromised by a bath toy, but security needs to be a primary concern for designers of these products. And the fact that there needs to be a conversation about security surrounding bath toys is inherently ridiculous.
I understand completely how we have come to this point, it’s no longer easy to sell a lot of products, and given how people are increasingly connected it is a good marketing tool. The promise of a connected device is a way to separate a product from the crowd, justify higher pricing and convince people that their current, functional appliance just isn’t good enough anymore. But just shoving an internet connection into absolutely everything can be dangerous, and if security isn’t going to be a top priority for people making these products, a juicer could be your downfall.
