The Dumb ‘Smart’ Gear That Someone’s Gonna Hack in 2017

Another year, another menagerie of devices that inexplicably connect to the internet. And while you can debate the usefulness of putting Wi-Fi in every last appliance in your home, it undoubtedly gives hackers more easy targets.

There’s a cartoonish version of a world full of hacked hair brushes and patio umbrellas, one in which bad actors transform smart objects into hostile trinkets. In some cases, as with many baby monitor models, that’s actually happened. The more realistic scenario, though, is usually more boring on a local level but potentially devastating on a large scale. Internet-connected devices, if not properly secured, can be roped into botnets capable of making web sites inaccessible to huge numbers of people.

The following smart devices aren’t necessarily insecure. They’re also not necessarily bad ideas. They do, though, introduce potentially vulnerable devices into the home in areas that were, for the most part, doing just fine being dumb.