5 devices in your home that really shouldn't be connected to Wi-Fi

5 devices in your home that really shouldn't be connected to Wi-Fi Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf By  Jorge Aguilar Published May 30, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT Aggy is a writer and editor who has worked for many high-traffic digital publications. He's a technology and gaming fanboy who has been a writer, editor, consultant, and computer animator. Sign in to your MakeUseOf account Add Us On Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap It is tempting to believe that every new appliance in your house needs to be connected to the internet to be modern. Marketing teams love to tell us that a smart fridge or an app-enabled toothbrush adds a level of convenience we never knew we were missing. In reality, these features aren't worth the hype and are usually just forced additions that send data to advertisers instead of helping. Related I turned my old tablet into a smart home dashboard, and it's perfect I use my 1st-gen iPad Pro as a smart home dashboard Posts 5 By  Jonathon Jachura Smart refrigerators are good at selling data You're giving your information right to the people selling you groceries Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock Credit: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock Smart refrigerators get zero practical benefit from an internet connection, and I know I'd regret buying one . Connecting a fridge to your network just to see a digital grocery list is a poor use of your bandwidth, especially since pen and paper or a note app on your phone have worked perfectly for decades. Large kitchen appliances are metal boxes packed with motors, compressors, and thick insulation, and all that material bounces and absorbs wireless signals, to create dead zones in your house. Weak connections force the network chips to keep resending data, which bogs down your connection and slows down other