Man spends 11 hours trying to make cup of tea with Wi-Fi kettle
Mark Rittman’s Tuesday morning was no cup of tea.
The Englishman waited 11 hours for his new, Wi-Fi-enabled kettle to boil the water for his drink.
Rittman, who is a data specialist from the town of Hove on the south coast of England, began his attempt at making a cup of tea at 9 a.m., but three hours later he still hadn’t produced a drop.
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
— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016
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
— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016
According to the Guardian, the crux of the issue stemmed from the fact that the base couldn’t seem to communicate with the kettle itself.
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
— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016
The key problem seemed to be that the new-age kettle didn’t come with the software that would allow for it to be integrated with other devices in Rittman’s home, including the Amazon Echo, which he was using for voice commands.
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
— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016
So the data specialist went about integrating the technologies himself.
After 11 hours of troubleshooting, the kettle finally started responding to voice control.
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
— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016
And shortly after, Rittman got his oolong-awaited cup of tea.
My work is done. And now onto everything else I meant to do today, after that first cup of tea. pic.twitter.com/bJPuJ85TCT
— Mark Rittman (@markrittman) October 11, 2016
In response to Rittman’s tweets about his tea troubles, some social media users expressed their worries about the integration of technology in the kitchen.
@markrittman At this point, I’m desperate to avoid this future at all costs.
— Michael Laccetti (@mlaccetti) October 11, 2016
Because you don’t mess with English Breakfast.