this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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still more tech than it needs
Don't know why the downvotes. You are absolutely correct.
My fridge doesn't even have a screen, but it has wifi. Wifi!! You do one thing. You are a box designed to keep my food cold. I set the temperature, and I forget that exists.
Anyway, we bought it when we bought our house. The previous owner offered to include all the appliances in the contract so it was nice to not have to buy any appliances. But that refrigerator stays OFF my network.
I'm OK with it for some things tbh. With a wifi fridge for example I can know if it stops working and the temp starts rising before I have a fridge full of spoiled food. With an oven I can know if I left the house with it still running. With the washer/dryer I can get notified when I need to fold the cloths before they get wrinkled. I think connected appliances have more useful applications than people give them credit for.
Something that might happen once in ten years isn't worth the additional security surface exposure. IMO
I have a small child. It's not just mechanical failure. Then again, I've got a separate network for IoT things. They can't see anything by each other and their controller. Unfortunately, most of the IoT appliances do NOT like this setup.
What security exposure? Any modern router has a way to isolate iot devices. I'm risking people knowing when I open my fridge?
Most people wouldn't bother.
And the risk would be more a foothold into your network as a staging point to attack other devices, as I'm sure you know .