Humidifiers and such: How much “smart” is too much?

This engineer’s new humidifier is—he kids you not—Wi-Fi enabled, therefore “smart”. What upsides does such a product deliver? And at what tradeoffs?

Within one of last month’s writeups, I mentioned that my wife and I had recently acquired two DREO 4 liter-capacity ionizing humidifiers. That purchase led to my interest in hygrometers (humidity measurement devices) such as the TP-Link Tapo T315, which ended up supplanting the bad data I’d previously relied upon, coming from my furnaces’ touchscreen thermostats.

Ionizing advancements

The baseline DREO HM311:

relies on front panel buttons for user control purposes. It works well, and I enjoy the dynamic bubbling-water “light show” projected through the center mist tube, particularly visible at night:

The ionizing design approach is also interesting; just make sure to remember to keep ‘em clean:

Its slightly more expensive “smart” sibling, the HM311S, adds Wi-Fi support, thereby making it controllable (and more broadly manageable) via a mated smartphone or other mobile device:

or even, courtesy of its integrated Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant support, your voice:

And the tri-color mist tube (which I’d been calling a “pillar” until I revisited the user manual just now), is a handy visual reference to the current measured humidity level (I’ve yet to see blue):

Light Color	Humidity Level
Yellow	≤30%
Green	31-60%
Blue	≥61%

Binary impermanence

Believe it or not, the HM311S is even the beneficiary of periodic firmware updates, such as the one that I was prompted to install as part of initial out-of-box setup:

Another update, I noticed, was available as I re-accessed the device via my smartphone two-plus months later, just prior to writing these words:

And yes, the humidifier’s status and settings are even accessible over the Internet; note the cellular-only connection in the following screenshot (per the reported 436 hours of use to date, this was an Amazon Warehouse-sourced, apparently previously-used unit, even though it arrived in seemingly brand-new condition):

Weighing pros and cons

Nifty. But also potentially (more than) a bit scary. First off, what’s the realistic benefit (if any) of remote status monitoring from my mobile device? It’s not like I have a robot sitting at home in my absence that can alternatively grab a water pitcher, fill it and transfer its contents to the humidifier if it empties, after all. Not yet, at least:

More generally, is it convenient to turn on and off (and raise and lower the output intensity) of the humidifier from the couch, using either the aforementioned smartphone or my voice? Sure. But on the other hand, I could also always use the exercise. And what do I give up in exchange for all this supposed connectivity “goodness”?

For one thing, I’m sharing WAN IP address, device usage and ambient analytics data with the manufacturer. For a humble DREO humidifier, maybe this degree of reveal isn’t such a big deal. But what about my Google Nest Wifi mesh network, similarly managed via the cloud? Or my Blink security camera setup, which leverages cloud services not only for monitoring and control purposes but also to store recordings (at least currently; stay tuned for next week’s teardown)?

And what happens if those cloud services, not only from DREO (or its Amazon Alexa partner), Google or Blink but any other similar supplier, get hacked? Sure, it’s annoying to have someone remotely switching on and off your humidifier out of your control. That time someone used my then-firewall-exposed IPP port to spit pages (and pages and pages) of gibberish out of my laser printer was a bit more annoying. But that’s not what I’m talking about when I say “scary”.

The hackers now know who I am from my account profile and can easily determine my location via an online search using my name. Since they know my WAN IP address, they can now attempt to hack me. They also know my Wi-Fi network credentials, which makes it even easier to get inside my LAN if, since they now know my location, they’re motivated to pull up and park on the street outside. They know my account username and password, which theoretically should be unique to this particular cloud service but—get real—is undoubtedly reused elsewhere. And for a paid cloud service, they also now know my credit card and/or bank account info. Fun times!

Is elementary (especially) convenience worth the potential consequences? If you’re a consumer, it’s a question you should be asking yourself pre-purchase…although you’re likely to be unaware of the possible downsides. Therefore, if you’re a manufacturer, it’s a question you should be asking on behalf of your potential customers during the initial development process…although you’ve also got marketing breathing down your neck for new features, and your competitors may have already unveiled similar capabilities, so you’re also under late-to-market pressure, so…

When, if ever, is a product too “smart”? Or taking the thought to the other end of the extremist spectrum, should products be “smart” at all, at least for the mass market? As always, I welcome your thoughts in the comments!

—Brian Dipert is the associate editor, as well as a contributing editor, at EDN Magazine.

Related Content

• The Tapo Hub: TP-Link joins the low-bandwidth, long-range RF club 
• The whole-house LAN: Achilles-heel alternatives, tradeoffs, and plan
• Blink: Security cameras with a power- and bandwidth-stingy uplink
• IoT device vulnerabilities are on the rise

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