Replacing conventional devices with smart ones has many advantages, e.g., a seamless integration of physical objects into the users digital environment or improved modes of use. However, if a conventional device is replaced by a smart device, its IT components can cause risks, that shorten the life of the device. Such risks stem from different life cycles of embedded soft- and hardware, libraries and protocols used, and the IT ecosystem required. This is problematic, because many conventional household appliances, say, a fridge or TV, have a much longer life span than typical IT equipment. In this paper, we use a systematic approach to identify long-term risks for the operational life span of a smart fridge. In particular, we identify 8 different use cases of three typical smart fridges, e.g., cooling or managing "best before" dates. We model the IT ecosystem needed to run these use cases, and we inspect each asset in this ecosystem for potential long-term risks. We found that even cooling, the most basic use case, is at risk in the long run. This is because the setting cooling parameters may depend on parts of the IT ecosystem that are not under the users control. On the other hand, we did not find any risk that may lead to harm of the category "threatening". Our findings on the smart fridge can be generalized to other smart devices easily.

翻译：用智能设备替代传统设备具有诸多优势，例如将物理对象无缝集成到用户的数字环境中，或改进使用模式。然而，当传统设备被智能设备取代时，其IT组件可能引发风险，从而缩短设备寿命。此类风险源于嵌入式软硬件、所用库及协议以及所需IT生态系统的生命周期差异。这一问题尤为严峻，因为许多传统家用电器（如冰箱或电视）的使用寿命远长于典型IT设备。本文采用系统化方法识别智能冰箱运行寿命面临的长期风险。具体而言，我们针对三种典型智能冰箱识别出8种不同用例（如制冷或管理"最佳保质期"），并对运行这些用例所需的IT生态系统进行建模，逐一检查该生态系统中每项资产存在的潜在长期风险。研究发现，即便最基础的制冷用例，长期来看也存在风险——因为制冷参数的设置可能依赖于用户无法控制的IT生态系统组成部分。但另一方面，我们未发现任何可能导致"威胁性"伤害的风险。基于智能冰箱的研究结论可轻松推广至其他智能设备。