I understand where you're coming from, but you're making a logical leap: you assume that HTTP over TLS somehow means that it needs to be interoperable with the

I understand where you're coming from, but you're making a logical leap: you assume that HTTP over TLS somehow means that it needs to be interoperable with the full and real internet. This device presumably already ships with a public key that verifies the integrity of the images it downloads. Why not ship with a single CA (owned by IKEA), or even single certificate? It doesn't even need to be signed by a public CA, this can all be self-signed by the org. This completely solves the issue with regards to anchors, as you call them. The next thing you mention is firmware update post-EOL. Again, TLS doesn't change much about this. If we apply Occam's razor, what is more likely: that Ikea's servers are upgraded beyond compatibility with today's TLS stack, or that the servers are shut down? Once EOL hits, you're SOL anyway. PS: A current nginx or Apache can still easily communicate with IE6. PPS: I'm not saying that I think TLS is required in this case. Just that the right argumentation has to be used.