5 ms·

This stream of tweets reads like satire, but it demonstrates an extremely important point: the "Internet of Things" will never become mainstream so long as ever

This stream of tweets reads like satire, but it demonstrates an extremely important point: the "Internet of Things" will never become mainstream so long as every appliance is a walled garden. Without open protocols to allow people to connect together whatever they like, this technology will remain a niche for the minority that know how to write the software themselves - and have the patience to.

verbify 10y ago
I think the bigger point is that smart devices should gracefully degrade to dumb devices.
- n0us 10y ago
  But then you wouldn't have to buy another one.
- markild 10y ago
  YES! Light switch not online, still switches lights. Smoke detector not connected to wifi, still beep when detecting smoke. The "smart" part is for convenience, not to create unnecessary dependencies. I'm a bit tired of seeing things that obviously only need access to local resources fail when the internet goes out.
- nicktelford 10y ago
  Very good point. It always disappoints me when I encounter systems that seem to ignore the Fallacies of Distributed Computing[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    I spent 5 years programming around those 8 fallacies for a web-conference company (ok maybe 3 fallacies reworded). Bottlenecks, network topology changes, different rules on different networks. Means you have to measure each connection and code multiple strategies. Probably should open-source that stuff, because its a growing problem and no sign of relief in sight.
- edejong 10y ago
  the thing I keep failing to understand is: why do these devices need to block while updating? Can't they just use two (small) memory-banks and download the image to bank 2 while working from the first one and do one quick switcheroo in a couple of milliseconds? (edit: question marks should mark the end of sentences which are questions)
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    From the security we've seen in these devices, I'm assuming that would be both a financial and technical no-go. The standard practice appears to be buying a minimum-cost board and loading it up with some stolen open-source software - sensible hot-swapping would be far too demanding for that. (But yes, that really should be the case. It could also support elegant failures back to the previous firmware version.)
    - dom0 10y ago
      IoT devices seem to be the result of putting web people in charge of embedded development. Not to defend emb. devs... some truly horrendous stuff out there as well.
      - krallja 10y ago
        I think it's the opposite; they put the embedded developers, who (rightly) have no sense of the insane challenge of doing security, in charge of talking to the Web.
        vonmoltke 10y ago
        I disagree with that characterization. Engineers working on connected devices, Web or not, should be cognizant of security issues. That many aren't I see as a problem. For that matter, I don't think most web developers have a proper sense of security challenges, either.
        dTal 10y ago
        Does it have to be either/or? You need both types of developers, and they have to talk to each other, and you have finite hiring resources. These are very different cultures, and the failure mode is either broken system software, which will get noticed and fixed, or broken security, which likely won't.
- 794CD01 10y ago
  The kettle in the story does do that. The user simply chose to continue to try to get it working as intended, rather than pressing the boil button on the kettle base and going on with his day.
- aaron695 10y ago
  Any examples of devices that don't??
brudgers 10y ago
The remote control for my television was an improvement because I didn't have to get up from my chair to change channels and when I got cable, there were a lot more channels to hunt. But most things don't need to be tuned because they don't create high bandwidth continuous variable information streams. My smartphone and television are valuable because they're part of the network. My refrigerator is valuable because it meaningfully reduces my odds of death by food poisoning. The general appeal of configuring things like refrigerators and tea kettles is probably lower than programming the VCR ever was. I'm skeptical that open protocols will change things much. Mostly because tea kettles are stand alone devices; the benefits of networking them are corner cases; and making them smart adds a lot of incidental complexity and that complexity manifests itself quickly because networks are unreliable.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  My preferred 'program' for my refrigerator is "get cold and stay that way". Turns out I can write that with a ten cent analog knob the day I buy it! I can imagine a world where it's worth programming my refrigerator, but the only possible justification would be that it integrates easily with a fitness band, to-do list, and preferably something else I care about. Ideally, I'd give them all some basic rules from a safe and convenient UI on my computer. I've seen arguments for networking a kettle - usually "hot when you get home" - but I've never believed any of them. The thing takes 30 seconds to boil already, and I have no need to integrate it into my health or planning regimens.
  - brudgers 10y ago
    When I imagine the world were I integrate my refrigerator with my shopping list it winds up not containing me. I mean I'd rather integrate my shopping list directly with my grocery store because integrating with my fridge smells like two integrations: there's also the fridge to the grocery store. Adding a fitness band is an n+1 operation in an O(n^2) integration process. And if I consider integrating at the feature level rather than the device level (which is where integration matters) the combinatorials are at the point where the responses can't be canned and the training sets don't exist to tune the integrations to my goals automatically.
OJFord 10y ago
> Without open protocols to allow people to connect > together whatever they like, this technology will remain > a niche for the minority that know how to write the > software themselves - and have the patience to. That's me, and a good chunk of the HN crowd, but there's also people that will be happy to buy in wholly to a single ecosystem. And unfortunately, that's actually more justified here than the "I'll get an iPhone/Mac because I have a Mac/iPhone so it'll work better" mindset that I'll never understand. > Without open protocols That doesn't seem to be enough - Apple's HomeKit is... "extensible", shall we say; Amazon's Alexa has an open API; Google's Weave is an open standard, but the schema's pretty lax (vendors are "encouraged" to use standard identifiers like "toaster", but let's be honest, tonnes will use "acme_toaster"). ARM's mbed does enforce standard identifiers - using the LWM2M (`/:ObjectID/:ObjectInstance/:ResourceID`) format [0] - but that's four different systems and only the big players, so... https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ (Standards). [0]: https://docs.mbed.com/docs/mbed-device-connector-web-interfaces/en/latest/#the-mbed-device-connector-data-model https://docs.mbed.com/docs/mbed-device-connector-web-interfa...
balabaster 10y ago
> this technology will remain a niche for the minority that know how to write the software themselves - and have the patience to Or just want that "computer, make me tea!" Star Trek experience. The frustration of getting it to work can easily be discounted by this guy's will just to make this thing work because the end result is awesome. I'd have gone through the same headache just for the delight of being able to say "Computer, make tea." and the computer making it so. Also, being able to do the same when guests come over just to show it off would have been worth every second of the aggravation it took to get it working - "Look what I did!" :D
nathan_long 10y ago
> it demonstrates an extremely important point: the "Internet of Things" will never become mainstream so long as every appliance is a walled garden. I would say the point is "it is absolutely moronic to put a computer in a tea kettle." I mean, seriously. What benefit can you possibly get from doing that? "Oh, I can turn the kettle on from anywhere." Wonderful. For that benefit I would maybe pay $1. It's not like it's going to actually make the tea and bring it to me. But how much would I pay for the assurance of absolutely perfect, air-gapped security from having hackers burn my house down by boiling my kettle dry, PLUS absolutely perfect assurance that I won't spend a second updating firmware or WiFi configurations or antivirus software on my kettle, PLUS absolutely perfect assurance that nobody is building a dataset about my life based on my kettle usage, PLUS absolutely perfect assurance that my kettle won't stop working because some service shut down or because some programmer mishandled memory... What, you say? Those features are impossible if a kettle is connected to the internet? People keep using this word "Smart". I don't think it means what they think it means.
- Balgair 10y ago
  Literally, the whole point is to be in Star Trek, to be able to say this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IJdfxWtPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IJdfxWtPM
  - nathan_long 10y ago
    ... except you still have to manually put water in the kettle, and put the tea bag in the cup, and pour the water on the tea bag, and add and mix sugar and/or milk yourself. Oh, and it doesn't actually have voice control. You have to pick up and unlock your phone and use an app, during which time you probably could have walked to the kitchen and turned on the kettle. The Future™, ladies and gentlemen.

verbify 10y ago

I think the bigger point is that smart devices should gracefully degrade to dumb devices.

n0us 10y ago
But then you wouldn't have to buy another one.
markild 10y ago
YES! Light switch not online, still switches lights. Smoke detector not connected to wifi, still beep when detecting smoke. The "smart" part is for convenience, not to create unnecessary dependencies. I'm a bit tired of seeing things that obviously only need access to local resources fail when the internet goes out.
nicktelford 10y ago
Very good point. It always disappoints me when I encounter systems that seem to ignore the Fallacies of Distributed Computing[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I spent 5 years programming around those 8 fallacies for a web-conference company (ok maybe 3 fallacies reworded). Bottlenecks, network topology changes, different rules on different networks. Means you have to measure each connection and code multiple strategies. Probably should open-source that stuff, because its a growing problem and no sign of relief in sight.
edejong 10y ago
the thing I keep failing to understand is: why do these devices need to block while updating? Can't they just use two (small) memory-banks and download the image to bank 2 while working from the first one and do one quick switcheroo in a couple of milliseconds? (edit: question marks should mark the end of sentences which are questions)
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  From the security we've seen in these devices, I'm assuming that would be both a financial and technical no-go. The standard practice appears to be buying a minimum-cost board and loading it up with some stolen open-source software - sensible hot-swapping would be far too demanding for that. (But yes, that really should be the case. It could also support elegant failures back to the previous firmware version.)
  - dom0 10y ago
    IoT devices seem to be the result of putting web people in charge of embedded development. Not to defend emb. devs... some truly horrendous stuff out there as well.
    - krallja 10y ago
      I think it's the opposite; they put the embedded developers, who (rightly) have no sense of the insane challenge of doing security, in charge of talking to the Web.
      - vonmoltke 10y ago
        I disagree with that characterization. Engineers working on connected devices, Web or not, should be cognizant of security issues. That many aren't I see as a problem. For that matter, I don't think most web developers have a proper sense of security challenges, either.
      - dTal 10y ago
        Does it have to be either/or? You need both types of developers, and they have to talk to each other, and you have finite hiring resources. These are very different cultures, and the failure mode is either broken system software, which will get noticed and fixed, or broken security, which likely won't.
794CD01 10y ago
The kettle in the story does do that. The user simply chose to continue to try to get it working as intended, rather than pressing the boil button on the kettle base and going on with his day.
aaron695 10y ago
Any examples of devices that don't??

brudgers 10y ago

The remote control for my television was an improvement because I didn't have to get up from my chair to change channels and when I got cable, there were a lot more channels to hunt. But most things don't need to be tuned because they don't create high bandwidth continuous variable information streams. My smartphone and television are valuable because they're part of the network. My refrigerator is valuable because it meaningfully reduces my odds of death by food poisoning. The general appeal of configuring things like refrigerators and tea kettles is probably lower than programming the VCR ever was. I'm skeptical that open protocols will change things much. Mostly because tea kettles are stand alone devices; the benefits of networking them are corner cases; and making them smart adds a lot of incidental complexity and that complexity manifests itself quickly because networks are unreliable.

Bartweiss 10y ago
My preferred 'program' for my refrigerator is "get cold and stay that way". Turns out I can write that with a ten cent analog knob the day I buy it! I can imagine a world where it's worth programming my refrigerator, but the only possible justification would be that it integrates easily with a fitness band, to-do list, and preferably something else I care about. Ideally, I'd give them all some basic rules from a safe and convenient UI on my computer. I've seen arguments for networking a kettle - usually "hot when you get home" - but I've never believed any of them. The thing takes 30 seconds to boil already, and I have no need to integrate it into my health or planning regimens.
- brudgers 10y ago
  When I imagine the world were I integrate my refrigerator with my shopping list it winds up not containing me. I mean I'd rather integrate my shopping list directly with my grocery store because integrating with my fridge smells like two integrations: there's also the fridge to the grocery store. Adding a fitness band is an n+1 operation in an O(n^2) integration process. And if I consider integrating at the feature level rather than the device level (which is where integration matters) the combinatorials are at the point where the responses can't be canned and the training sets don't exist to tune the integrations to my goals automatically.

OJFord 10y ago

> Without open protocols to allow people to connect > together whatever they like, this technology will remain > a niche for the minority that know how to write the > software themselves - and have the patience to. That's me, and a good chunk of the HN crowd, but there's also people that will be happy to buy in wholly to a single ecosystem. And unfortunately, that's actually more justified here than the "I'll get an iPhone/Mac because I have a Mac/iPhone so it'll work better" mindset that I'll never understand. > Without open protocols That doesn't seem to be enough - Apple's HomeKit is... "extensible", shall we say; Amazon's Alexa has an open API; Google's Weave is an open standard, but the schema's pretty lax (vendors are "encouraged" to use standard identifiers like "toaster", but let's be honest, tonnes will use "acme_toaster"). ARM's mbed does enforce standard identifiers - using the LWM2M (`/:ObjectID/:ObjectInstance/:ResourceID`) format [0] - but that's four different systems and only the big players, so... https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ (Standards). [0]: https://docs.mbed.com/docs/mbed-device-connector-web-interfaces/en/latest/#the-mbed-device-connector-data-model https://docs.mbed.com/docs/mbed-device-connector-web-interfa...

balabaster 10y ago

> this technology will remain a niche for the minority that know how to write the software themselves - and have the patience to Or just want that "computer, make me tea!" Star Trek experience. The frustration of getting it to work can easily be discounted by this guy's will just to make this thing work because the end result is awesome. I'd have gone through the same headache just for the delight of being able to say "Computer, make tea." and the computer making it so. Also, being able to do the same when guests come over just to show it off would have been worth every second of the aggravation it took to get it working - "Look what I did!" :D

nathan_long 10y ago

> it demonstrates an extremely important point: the "Internet of Things" will never become mainstream so long as every appliance is a walled garden. I would say the point is "it is absolutely moronic to put a computer in a tea kettle." I mean, seriously. What benefit can you possibly get from doing that? "Oh, I can turn the kettle on from anywhere." Wonderful. For that benefit I would maybe pay $1. It's not like it's going to actually make the tea and bring it to me. But how much would I pay for the assurance of absolutely perfect, air-gapped security from having hackers burn my house down by boiling my kettle dry, PLUS absolutely perfect assurance that I won't spend a second updating firmware or WiFi configurations or antivirus software on my kettle, PLUS absolutely perfect assurance that nobody is building a dataset about my life based on my kettle usage, PLUS absolutely perfect assurance that my kettle won't stop working because some service shut down or because some programmer mishandled memory... What, you say? Those features are impossible if a kettle is connected to the internet? People keep using this word "Smart". I don't think it means what they think it means.

Balgair 10y ago
Literally, the whole point is to be in Star Trek, to be able to say this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IJdfxWtPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IJdfxWtPM
- nathan_long 10y ago
  ... except you still have to manually put water in the kettle, and put the tea bag in the cup, and pour the water on the tea bag, and add and mix sugar and/or milk yourself. Oh, and it doesn't actually have voice control. You have to pick up and unlock your phone and use an app, during which time you probably could have walked to the kitchen and turned on the kettle. The Future™, ladies and gentlemen.