The Internet of Shittiest Things: ExtremeTech’s All-Time Hall of Shame

by Joel Hruska

I’ve written to a lot of topics at ET, from CPUs and semiconductors to archaeology, but cataloguing bad Internet of Things devices has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s not because I hate the IoT — I genuinely don’t — but because so many Internet of Things devices are more properly classified as belonging to the Internet of Shit or Internet of Shitty Things:

The Internet of Shitty Things is here. Have all of your best home appliances ruined by putting the internet in them!

- Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) July 3, 2015

The IoST has delivered quite a few gems over the years. Here are a few of the best. Some of these we’ve talked about at ExtremeTech before and some are new to this article.

#5. GE Smart Ovens That Require WiFi to Cook

When it comes to the …” as a service” model that’s become increasingly popular, legacy brands like GE are at a disadvantage. Many of these manufacturers cut their teeth in an era when a company’s quality was measured by how little the customer interacted with it post-sale. “You know why I buy Whirlpool?” I remember my grandfather telling me as we drove past a local manufacturing plant a few decades back. “Because…