LOL, I have yet to read the article, but weeks ago I saw a promotion video on some stock brokers sites, saying that the "Internet of things" will become a whole new revolution. And that it will take us back to the Internet companies hype (stock bubble) from 2000, and that you shouldn't miss out.
"Internet of things" - noun "a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data." It will never work, and could be dangerous in many respects.
That it's losing steam is a good thing. I always viewed it as a pet-project from some corporate flunky at intel who wants to add unnecessary complexity to everyday items because sounds cool or looks cool and can make someone (not you) a lot of money.
One of the stupidist & Worst ideas ever ! Of course numbskulls think it's great that they can hook everything up .... There the ones who will & do get infected & don't care about privacy/security !
Smart lights run insecure servers. So hack the server, and now you're in LAN. If there are Windows boxes on LAN, and aren't patched and secured, game over.
It would be the other way around. The light bulbs are connected to the internal WLAN only, they don't listen or make external connections. You'd need to attack something Internet-facing before attacking the light bulb.
Maybe someone could make it flicker subliminal messages in Morse code. Maybe they could make it flicker really fast and induce seizures. It is possible to do bad things with lights.
This internet of things seems to complicate simple activities. For some things it might be alright, but others it's just busymaking.