Data specialist Mark Rittman spent an entire day attempting to set up his new appliance so that it would boil on command

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

All Mark Rittman wanted was a cup of tea. Little did he know he would have to spend 11 hours waiting for his new hi-tech kettle to boil the water.

Rittman, a data specialist who lives in Hove, England, set about trying to make a cup of tea around 9am. But thanks to his Wi-Fi enabled kettle it wasn’t long before he ran into trouble.

Mark Rittman (@markrittman) Still haven't had a first cup of tea this morning, debugging the kettle and now iWifi base-station has reset. Boiling water in saucepan now. pic.twitter.com/lC3uNX5WTp

Three hours later the kettle was still having problems. The main issue seemed to be that the base station was not able to communicate with the kettle itself.

Mark Rittman (@markrittman) 3 hrs later and still no tea. Mandatory recalibration caused wifi base-station reset, now port-scanning network to find where kettle is now. pic.twitter.com/TRQLuLzLpx

News of Rittman’s plight quickly spread on Twitter, further slowing his progress.

Mark Rittman (@markrittman) Now the Hadoop cluster in garage is going nuts due to RT to @internetofshit, saturating network + blocking MQTT integration with Amazon Echo pic.twitter.com/ryd42c5ewj

Still the kettle refused to play ball.



Mark Rittman (@markrittman) Now my wifi kettle is basically taking the p*ss. Told me it had found network, now you need to recalibrate me, oh btw I didn't rly connect pic.twitter.com/WbGsIrzBio

Kitchen gadgets review: the Egg Master – a horrifying, unholy affair Read more

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.

Mark Rittman (@markrittman) It is, and OK apart from flaky WiFi connectivity; main issue is that there's no IFTTT or HomeKit integration, so hacked that together myself https://t.co/0IjD7q4wzM

Then, after 11 hours, a breakthrough: the kettle started responding to voice control.

Mark Rittman (@markrittman) 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 pic.twitter.com/yPTDoUkM9Z

And finally – success!

Mark Rittman (@markrittman) My work is done. And now onto everything else I meant to do today, after that first cup of tea. pic.twitter.com/bJPuJ85TCT

Although some people following Rittman’s progress – justifiably – wondered what was wrong with the old technology.

ready 4 december (@onekade) @markrittman why don't you just get normal fucking kettle