11/25/2025
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You’ll probably be surprised if I ask: What is a vacuum cleaner used for? The answer is obvious, so I’ll leave it at that. Unless, of course, we discover additional, previously unknown functions of a device that shouldn’t actually have them.
An engineer Harishankar got curious about how his iLife A11 smart vacuum worked and monitored the network traffic coming from the device. That’s when he noticed it was constantly sending logs and telemetry data to the manufacturer — something he hadn’t consented to. The user, Harishankar, decided to block the telemetry servers’ IP addresses on his network, while keeping the firmware and OTA servers open. While his smart gadget worked for a while, it just refused to turn on soon after. After a lengthy investigation, he discovered that a remote kill command had been issued to his device. Quote from an article published November 1 on tomshardware.com: Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline.
I wasn’t able to fully verify the information in this article, but I’m including it anyway because similar, verified reports frequently address the issue of users being controlled by their own devices. Furthermore, I can confirm that such control is technically possible. If so, why shouldn’t it be integrated into our daily lives? Perhaps for moral reasons—after all, who would do such a thing to us? The once widespread belief that those in power only have our best interests at heart is rapidly fading.
If someone tempts us today with a bright future and undeniable advantages, we can be sure that—if these advantages even materialize—we will, strangely enough, be excluded from sharing in those potential benefits. All that is expected of us is a humble agreement to total control. After all, we have already allowed ourselves to be silenced, disguised as a mask. Of course, this is all for our own good.
In the end, the owner was able to run his vacuum fully locally without manufacturer control after all the tweaks he made. This helped him retake control of his data and make use of his $300 software-bricked smart device on his own terms. As for the rest of us who don’t have the technical knowledge and time to follow his accomplishments, his advice is to “Never use your primary WiFi network for IoT devices” and to “Treat them as strangers in your home.”
Author of the article: Marek Wojcik
Email: worldscam3@gmail.com
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