This article is over 2 years old 
 
 Data specialist Mark Rittman spent an entire day attempting to set up his new appliance so that it would boil on command 
 
 English man spends 11 hours trying to make cup of tea with Wi-Fi kettle 
 
 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 

 Data specialist Mark Rittman wanted to make tea around 9:00AM, but found himself in an eleven hour saga trying to get his wi-fi tea kettle to work. He documented his struggle on a website that’s also struggling, a social network called Twitter.com. 
 
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 While Rittman did acquiesce to boiling his water the old-fashioned way—in a “saucepan”—his struggle with his wi-fi kettle continued well into the day. 
 
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 Rittman literally had to hack his kettle in order for the water to get boiled... 11 hours later. 
 
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 What’s the lesson here? Never give up. JK, the lesson is fuck the internet of things. Go analog, baby. 
 
 [The Guardian] 

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– English data specialist Mark Rittman just wanted hot water for his 9am tea, but one thing led to another and it wasn't until dinnertime that he managed to fully diagnose the problem with his WiFi-enabled "smart" kettle, hack a workaround, and use voice control to tell his kettle to boil water, reports the Guardian. Meanwhile, he'd been detailing his epic travails on Twitter, because that's what data specialists do. Unfortunately, his tweets technically disrupted his progress because, as he wrote, "The Hadoop cluster in garage is going nuts due to RT to @internetofshit, saturating network + blocking MQTT integration with Amazon Echo." In other words, he'd attracted too much attention to his plight and it was slowing him down. By the time he finally solved the issues, he was eating supper in the dark because, as he wrote, his lights were downloading a firmware update. Lesson learned? Many commenters and Gizmodo have weighed in, and the verdict is: "Go analog, baby." Now if you'll excuse Rittman, he's got a full day of work to catch up on. (Have you heard of the smart tampon?)