English Man Spends 11 Hours Trying To Make Cup of Tea With Wi-Fi Kettle (theguardian.com) 200
All data specialist Mark Rittman wanted was a cup of tea from his all new Wi-Fi kettle. Little did he know that the thing would take 11 hours for that. The issue, in the case of Rittman was, that the base station was not able to communicate with the kettle itself. According to The Guardian: A key problem seemed to be that Rittman's kettle didn't come with software that would easily allow integration with other devices in his home, including Amazon Echo, which, like Apple's Siri, allows users to tell connected smart devices what to do. So Rittman was trying to build the integration functionality himself. Then, after 11 hours, a breakthrough: the kettle started responding to voice control.
The worst part (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The worst part (Score:5, Funny)
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I thought it was that his kettle unexpectedly transformed into a whale.
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I thought it was that his kettle unexpectedly transformed into a whale.
Oh No..... Not again.....
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Re:The worst part (Score:5, Insightful)
I like the final tweet of his in the article.
Well the kettle is back online and responding to voice control, but now we're eating dinner in dark while lights download a firmware update
This should be the only response ever given when someone tries to sell IoT nonsense.
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Did you remember your towel?
The towel was easy. The real question is, did you remember how to get the motherfucking Babel fish from the motherfucking Babel fish dispenser?
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Maybe he should have opted for a pangalactic garglebalster; Its effects are similar to "having your brains smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick".
Re:The worst part (Score:5, Insightful)
It's rare to have a first post that can effectively be the last post. Today is the day you win the internet.
I hacked him... (Score:2)
....his kettle will produce coffee tomorrow morning.
Re:The worst part (Score:5, Funny)
the kettle started responding to voice control.
And the kettle responded by calling the pot black.
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No, wireless. 802.11tea.
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Re:The worst part (Score:4, Funny)
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More accurate headline? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More accurate headline? (Score:5, Interesting)
I kinda care. Its interesting to see the hacks people do to make things work. Granted this isn't as cool as making an iMac into a fish tank but still, kinda neat.
Re:More accurate headline? (Score:4, Funny)
You must have very thin fish.
Re:More accurate headline? (Score:4, Informative)
Back in the Ancient Times, there were colorful iMacs with cathode ray tube screens.
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Surely UID 27417 (I am humbled) is one of the Old Ones and knew this. Very amusing.
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You're humbled by 27417 but not by his parent who was called "geek" with 5680?
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How often do I get to troll a 4 digit UID? :)
*Obligatory rant about the old days of quality slashdot full of petrified Natalie Portman hot grits and penis birds*
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Well played.
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Back in the Ancient Times, there were colorful iMacs with cathode ray tube screens.
People turned Mac Pluses into aquariums 10 years before there was an iMac. And I've seen pictures of televisions turned into aquarium from the 60s.
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You must have very thin fish.
Walks into shop and looks at phrase book: "My Mac is full of eels".
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"I still use the hockey puck mouse, very ergonomic"
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And the articles used to explain how they did what they did with particularly clever code snippets highlighted for our amusement/education, and we used to think they were awesome for figuring it out and sharing.
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Man buys IoT kettle that doesn't have support for Amazon Echo, spends 11 hours coding support, puts lame spin on story because nobody cares.
To be fair, he didn't spin the story, he just tweeted what he was doing. It isn't his fault that newspapers and the public can't tell the difference between a hacker's project log and an average person struggling with a consumer device.
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RFC2324 compliant? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does it correctly implement RFC2324 and respond 418 I'm a teapot when asked to brew coffee?
Re:RFC2324 compliant? (Score:4, Informative)
I'd expect it to implement RFC7168. Perhaps he just sent a BREW request for / and didn't inspect the Alternates header on the response.
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Unfortunately the only response it gives is that it is "short and stout"...
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Not technically required by the standard.
2.3.2 418 I'm a teapot
Any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot should result in the error
code "418 I'm a teapot". The resulting entity body MAY be short and
stout.
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Does it correctly implement RFC2324 and respond 418 I'm a teapot when asked to brew coffee?
It's not a teapot. It's a kettle.
What. The. Fuck. (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously? I'm not sure what has me more gobsmacked - the fact that somebody would make a WiFi kettle, or the fact that anybody would actually BUY the fucking thing and burn 11 hours of his life trying to make it work. "Yes, I willingly wasted 11 hours of time, plus however much time I had to work to pay for it, on a kettle, just so I could connect it to the Interwebs! Isn't that cool?"
Soon we'll be hearing stories about people being DDOS'd and spammed by their own appliances, and I will laugh heartily.
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Seriously? I'm not sure what has me more gobsmacked - the fact that somebody would make a WiFi kettle, or the fact that anybody would actually BUY the fucking thing and burn 11 hours of his life trying to make it work.
Perhaps it was about the journey and not the destination? If you follow the link you'll see that he was using a network scanner and other tactics to coax it into working that suggest his motivation was curiosity. He's not an average consumer, he's a tinkerer/hacker.
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Perhaps it was about the journey and not the destination? If you follow the link you'll see that he was using a network scanner and other tactics to coax it into working that suggest his motivation was curiosity. He's not an average consumer, he's a tinkerer/hacker.
Good point. I have to wonder, though, if he bought the kettle knowing he was facing a major integration effort, or if he just wanted a cuppa. The article doesn't make that clear.
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Larry Wall does not approve of your pathetic level of laziness.
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Soon we'll be hearing stories about people being DDOS'd and spammed by their own appliances, and I will laugh heartily.
And in other news, talking appliances considered to be part of that new fangled Internet of Things (IoT) declared themselves to be a collective group and now refer to themselves as "Skynet". More news as things develop. Tune in at 11!
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Re: What. The. Fuck. (Score:2)
It should be illegal to ship an Internet connected device that doesn't...
1. Support secure boot, so that a system won't run not unauthorized software unless a user explicitly overrides it.
2. Support an authentication method where the device keys can't be copied off the device after the device software has been modified. A modified device shouldn't be granted access to network services without explicit user consent. Can you imagine a modified echo ordering tons of crap to unsuspecting victims?
This protects c
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I'd never heard of that - thanks for the chuckle!
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>The idea wasn't to boil a pot of tea.
It's never a good idea to boil a pot of tea unless you want a sterile tea pot. Boil the water then add it to the tea pot.
Never ask a hobbyist why (Score:5, Insightful)
The inevitable question asked IoT tinkerers is : what's the point? Was it worth it? After three weeks of tinkering, and an ugly mess of arduinos, breadboards and wires, Now you can hit the snooze button on your analog clock with wifi, or now you can run ssh on a teletype machine. Why did you do it?
The answer is usually : to see if I could.
And I say God bless those nutters.
Re:Never ask a hobbyist why (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course it is! Manufacturers discovered a long time ago, that even their cheapest quality stuff lasts too long and people don't buy new ones often enough. By internet enabling them, they can conveniently discontinue the server side support (which usually blocks all local functions as well) any time they need a new revenue boost and force people to buy new ones all over again.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Unfortunately, this product was an example of a "bad thing". Home automation has been stuck in its infancy for thirty years due to each vendor trying to create a locked-in ecosystem instead of focusing on creating better products. Progress will continue at a snails pace until interoperation is improved. If you read the article, one of his problems was trying to connect his new gadget (kettle) to his existing gadget (Amazon Echo).
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We used to have standards, now we have patents. One benefits all of mankind for eternity, the other benefits a small group of manufacturers for a very limited time. You can see why society has chosen the one over the other....
Re:Where's the love and support? Where's the tea? (Score:2)
this is the move to home automation expanding and growing
It's not home automation at all.
You still have to go to the kettle, and fill it with water. You still have to stop what you are doing to brew your tea. You still have to find a clean cup to put the tea in.
REAL home automation would know when you want a drink. It would make it for you. It would deliver it to you (where ever you are in the house) and pick up the dirty cup afterwards, wash it and stack it back in the cupboard.
This is just being a slave to your gadgets.
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Nice "no true Scotsman" there.
Oh, and I'm sure the kettle only holds a single cup of tea worth of water, not like they make kettles that heat 1.5L+ water right? I mean that would be insane! you could reboil the water multiple times a day without having to refill it, and whoever heard of THAT?
When is the last time you have heard about a new technology that just sprang up 100% fully formed and functional? Home automation is still in its infancy, of course it isn't going to do every little niggling thing for y
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Which is why the intelligent tea drinker has a boiling water tap installed, that produces hot water on demand with no delay and no waste.
To be fair it's probably a little less efficient than a kettle, but only if you assume that all of the water in a kettle will be immediately used.
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Ever see Star Trek? When Picard went to a replicator and said 'Earl Grey Tea, hot' and poof, tea came out?
That has always really annoyed me. Who ever asked for a cold cup of tea?
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Tea, Earl Grey, Hot, fuzzbucket.
You would think that with their AI computer system, they could at least store some preferences so that if he asked for Tea, without any other qualifiers, it would just give him his usual. Or since it is supposed to be an AI, ask if it sensed he might want something different.
Wrong tool for the job (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldda got a Galaxy Note 7. Heats up shit quick.
Call me crazy... (Score:2)
Terrible headline (Score:2)
It didn't take him 11 hours of trying to randomly get it to work, it took 11 hours of complex system integration effort to make something do something it didn't already do. Duh. I spent at least that much time on enabling remote control of my garage door from my Android phone. That doesn't mean it takes me hours to close or open my door from my phone; it takes seconds, at most. But making it work took hours... so that I could do it in seconds from my phone.
Hmm. Clearly I need to figure out how to integrat
Tea for my phone (Score:3)
Unless the WiFi kettle can turn my phone, or wifi PC into a tea dispensing entity, I don't want it. It would be nice to have a tea button on my phone that pours freshly brewed tea out the headphone jack... ... obviously this wouldn't work with an iPhone.
RFC 2324 Compliant? (Score:3)
I suspect the problem is that the kettle is RFC 2324 [ietf.org] compliant, and was returning a 418 error [google.com].
No worries -- I hear they're working on a firmware update to make the kettle RFC 7168 [ietf.org] compliant, which should make integration much easier.
Yaz
Why WIFI waves? (Score:2)
From the Guardian's comments (Score:2)
"Sounds like a case of the port not calling the kettle back." Well done, AlabasterCodefy, well done.
XKCD wisdom (Score:2)
Because I haven't seen this posted yet: https://xkcd.com/1319/ [xkcd.com]
90 seconds (Score:2)
People are missing the point. (Score:2)
Sure, it sounds ridiculous to spend 11 hours to make a cup of tea, but in the end he obtained tea by solving a more general problem. This opens up entirely new, previously unimagined possibilities. For example now he can tell it to make him a cup of tea when he's physically situated on the other side of the world.
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...or while he's on the way home from work, so that there'll be a nice hot cup of tea waiting for him when he walks through the door.
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It's probably worth noting that with 240 volts you can draw almost 3000 watts off an outlet (2990). If the minimum fill line on your kettle is 0.7 liters you can boil that in about 100 seconds.
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if you've good a hidden element kettle, the minimum fill is about one mug, so under half a litre.
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No shit -- you have to buy all the OTHER stuff. (Score:2)
A key problem seemed to be that Rittman's kettle didn't come with software that would easily allow integration with other devices in his home...
He was expecting interchangeability with third-party devices? Lock-in and proprietary communications is what the IoT is all about!
So, for 11 hours he had no tea... (Score:2)
Did he keep the no tea so he could open the screening door when he had the tea?
Infocom games had the best graphics. Everything was exactly as I imagined it!
No tea for 11 hours (Score:2)
How did he stay awake to work on the thing to get it to make tea to keep him awake in the first place?
I can just imagine how this went (Score:2)
"Hmmm this is going to take a while" he said. "I'd better start a kettle". He turned on the gas and snapped the grill lighter hastily, as the electric ignition on the stove had not worked in years. This had been at least part of his motive for acquiring the new tech in the first place. "Now I can get to work", he muttered...
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to evade the fact that their work is pointless junk
I would say in this case, embraced the fact. Honestly if I said no to all pointless junk excreted by marketing, I'd be out of a job (for multiple reasons, perhaps). The trick is to say no often enough to stop a new pet rock, but not so often it looks like laziness. Unfortunately when you work for a company that hires particularly dumb marketing bots, the bar falls rather low...
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A normal kettle takes about 45 seconds to boil a liter of water, yet we're debating how to add WiFi to a fucking KETTLE so we don't have to wait that long.
What the fuck is wrong with us?
This was in the UK, where the voltage is twice as high, so the power (P=V^2/R) is four times as big. Actually it's a little less than that, but the kettles do boil faster than in the USA.
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We passed the point of "useful" and onto "making pointless shit then trying to get people to buy it".
Much of the world's economy has been based on that principle for decades.
(for quite plausible values of "useful" and "pointless")
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Mine can do that - I press a button on it to tell it when I'm awake.
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That's brilliant, if you're somehow inhuman enough to roll out of bed at exactly the same time every morning. I want my coffee maker connected to my snooze button.
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For coffee it's cool to just set the time, because if it sits for some time it's no biggie, but for tea (or if you use a French Press or Aero Press), where the kettle will eventually become cool, and need to be reheated.
I'm not trying to claim it's some earth shattering breakthrough, but having a kettle of perfect temp water when I walk down stairs is exactly the type of mild convenience I would hope IoT provides 1000 different little ways a day.
Do I need it? no. Will it mildly improve the quality of my life? yes.
my parents have that without the "smarts" a coffee maker that goes of at the time you set and has a vacuum thermos for the carafe. keeps the coffee hot untill you wake up
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It's going to get worse, just wait until these same dumb assholes are putting AI in everything.
The tech industry is dead set on infantilizing the entire human race so they can make a few more bucks. Even when no one really wants their shit they push it anyway.
Once the computers are doing all of our thinking for us, what's the use for humanity?
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And if the wi-fi doesn't work, a sane machine would at least have a power button to turn it on manually. Wi-fi only though is a silly idea.
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Ah, but this isn't setting your kettle for when you get up, it's setting your kettle for a fixed time and then also waking up at that time. The time you get up is no longer an independent variable in that system. It's like Ford allowing you to choose any color car you like, as long as you choose black.
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Has nothing to do with wifi though. The only reason to have wifi is if you're a hipster dork.
they'll never sell... (Score:2)
And that's not just counting the Saturn Vs.
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To paraphrase Thomas J Watson "I think there is a world market for about twenty Saturn rockets." And that's not just counting the Saturn Vs.
Unimaginative.....If only they'd have kept building them, through economies of scale, we'd have a Saturn rocket in every household appliance by now.
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To paraphrase Thomas J Watson "I think there is a world market for about twenty Saturn rockets."
And that's not just counting the Saturn Vs.
Unimaginative.....If only they'd have kept building them, through economies of scale, we'd have a Saturn rocket in every household appliance by now.
Those F1 motors should heat that kettle up right quick.
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To paraphrase Thomas J Watson "I think there is a world market for about twenty Saturn rockets." And that's not just counting the Saturn Vs.
Unimaginative.....If only they'd have kept building them, through economies of scale, we'd have a Saturn rocket in every household appliance by now.
I'm sure by leveraging some synergies and optimising their best-of-breed supply chain logistics they'd be giving them away free with cornflakes.
complicated setup procedure (Score:2)
Re: Four words (Score:4, Informative)
Depends on your point of view. If you're a customer, the point of a pod is to make you a cup of coffee. But in Keurig's eyes, the point of a pod was never to make coffee, it was always to make a profit on each pod sold.
However, third parties figured out how to make pods, too, and none of them paid Keurig royalties for doing so. This upset Keurig greatly. So they came out with Keurig 2.0, with a built-in Genuine Keurig Pod Detector (an LED and photo transistor that detects Keurig's invisible ink printed on the pod's foil top.) This invisible ink thwarted the evil third parties pods by reporting to the coffee maker's owner that "no valid Keurig pod was detected". This of course made all the coffee drinkers go back to buying Genuine Keurig Pods, making Keurig profits go up again.
Except it didn't. The day after they came out, enterprising coffee drinkers figured out this nonsense and simply taped an old Keurig label onto the detector, and continued using their third party pods. Some third party pod makers provided a free clip-on reflector printed with the invisible ink that fit over the detector. And all the blogs were atwitter with the Evil that Keurig had wrought with Keurig 2.0. The demise of the company was predicted, buckets of tar and feathers were gathered, and the peasants grabbed their pitchforks and torches.
Except that didn't happen either. Most people got on with their morning coffee, Keurig looked stupid for a while, and the whole tempest in a teapot blew over.
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"Everything was incompatible, nothing worked, and it took forever to setup" is marketing for Echo?
Is this some kind of new scheme where marketing companies pay not to have "advertisement" like this posted?