over they years, as a consumer, you develop something like a "buzzword firewall". You dont register words like "user interaction experience", "cloud intelligence based ", "artificial intelligence based decision making" anymore. Your fridge, your toothbrush, your coffee machine, every little gadget now wants to be helpful in collecting personal data as much as possible, but in fact the modern generation of IOT things still lacks a "killer app" that has a recognizable added value. Moreover, all the new networked stuff is pogrammed in an immense hurry and is most likely just a collection of security holes and software bugs. Not tragic, because the indended limfetime is just one day longer than the warranty period.
My recipe:
- play dumb. Buy the simplest product that does the job, but has acceptable quality and is robust. Ask for stuff for senior people, if nothing else helps
![Smiley :)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xsmiley.gif.pagespeed.ic.R8GFI-pF6f.png)
- let your stuff communicate on a strict "need to know" basis. Internet for your toothbrush ? Rather not.
- Put your entertainment stuff behind a firewall and in a separate LAN segment.
- Disable spyware wherever you can. TV needs a camera to look at you ? Your lamp app in your mobile needs access to your contacts ? Come on !
- A web app wants all kinds of data before letting you read some documents ? Let your phantasy roam freely ...
For T&M Eqipment:
- Unless you desparately need to, *never* buy stuff that has been on the market for less than 2 years.
- Only buy where a reasonable customer base exists and reviews were friendly.
- *always* make hands on tests before you buy (a week minimum for a complex unit like a VNA)
- always look at more than one vendor
- negotiate hard, but fair. Its a lot easier if your testing was thorough and you got some arguments in your hands.