I’ve had this article in draft for some time, somewhat in despair of it ever seeing the light of day, but the change in legislation[1] around smart devices has some bearing upon it, so here it is finally.
Some time ago whilst watching a program on iPlayer on a SmartTV, I was interrupted by a very loud bang, and the picture disappeared. This made me jump somewhat.
The TV was dead as a dodo. It was probably a capacitor or MOSFET which exploded. I though little of it, once the immediate shock passed; the TV was a few years old (probably around 10 now I think about it). I sent it off the Great Recycling Centre In The Sky, and replaced it.
Recently, an ethernet-over-power unit also exploded, this time with some dramatic smoke to liven things up a bit. Amazon informs me that I bought these in August 2010. I had retired the pair of devices in early 2020, replacing them with faster ones. But I had just put the old ones into an ever-growing stack of Stuff-Which-Still-Works-And-Might-Be-Useful, as many of us probably do – and about a week before the failure had pressed them back into service to plug a gap whilst getting a suitably long ethernet cable installed to a distant part of the house.
Most of the old tech I hoard[4] is rarely if ever used, and then only under close supervision. This stuff is unlikely to present much risk. However, we have lots of technology which hangs around in use for extended periods. Some of the early Internet of Things (IoT) devices stopped working when the companies behind them went bust (Nabaztag[5], now sitting unpowered on a high shelf peering down at me) or gave up on them (Microsoft Zune[6]!).
Currently there are concerns around devices which no longer receive security updates – rather important, since any one of these devices can potentially provide an attacker a foothold within our internal home networks which, without really explicitly thinking about it in most cases, we all seem to have now.
Maybe it is time for manufacturers to be open and honest about both the hardware and the software/firmware lifetimes of devices we buy? Whereas simple things like a spade for digging in the garden can last forever[7], modern electronics simply cannot. When buying GadgetX, we should expect to know at the time of purchase the end date for software/firmware support, and at least an indication of the design lifetime of the hardware – even if it is a not-recommended-to-keep-using-after date.
This will never happen unless mandated by consumer protection regulations/laws in a major market like the EU. But it feels to me as though the time has come for this.
Legislation[1] from April 2024 addresses the software/firmware issue with regard to security updates.
Hardware lifetime itself is NOT addressed by this. Whereas devices should be designed to “fail safe”, this is not always the case.
Maybe this aspect should be addressed next?
Footnotes & References
[4] The first computer I owned, a 48K ZX Spectrum, the Sinclair QL which I won in a tough competition, plus a ZX81 & ZX80 acquired since I had used these too before I had my own computer to use. Amongst many others…
[5] A cute rabbit-like device which used to play music & read stories to my kids whilst spinning its ears
[6] An iPod-alike device for music with DRM – which made its shutdown complex and painful
[7] Like my treasured great-great grandfather’s garden spade, still fully functional having only had 5 new handles and 2 new blades (#dadjoke)
Gânduri Eclectice - Eclectic Thoughts 