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Internet of Spin? The most useless IoT devices ever

Larissa Fedunik
5 min readJul 8, 2021

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Shop Until You Drop by Banksy, in London.

Innovation. Must-have. Revolution. These are words that get thrown about a lot in the tech sphere, and the land of internet-connected devices (aka the Internet of Things, or IoT) is no exception. But what happens when connectivity adds approximately zero value?

Redundancy doesn’t seem to be barrier for the manufacturers of useless IoT. In an article on The Conversation, David Glance, director of the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Software Practice, writes that:

“Technology for technology’s sake has become a marketing strategy aimed at people who identify as being affluent, connected, innovative, and technologically fluent […There are] a long list of products that are as high-tech as they are lacking in utility.”

Perusing the Io(useless)T, you’ll find everything from smart water bottles, toasters, egg minders, hairbrushes, toilet paper dispensers, condoms and shutters. One writer even calls it the internet-of-spinach, after the infamous Wifi-juicer scam. Read on for more about the biggest IoT fails, plus three new devices that…

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Larissa Fedunik
Larissa Fedunik

Written by Larissa Fedunik

Writes about history and science. Loves the obscure. Based in Canberra, Australia. PhD in Chemistry.

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