There’s a phrase in information security that has stuck with me: air gap.
It means a system that is physically isolated, disconnected from any network, wireless or wired. No updates. No remote access. No pings. No meaningfl attack surface (debatable, but lets stay on track). It’s what you use when the stakes are too high to risk even the faintest leak. Defence by disconnection.
I’ve been thinking about air gaps lately. Not in the context of servers, but in gardens. In infrastructure. In the parts of my life I want to keep working when everything else falls apart.
It’s easy to romanticise smart systems, soil sensors with WiFi modules, irrigation timers hooked into HomeAssistant, weather-based adjustments pulled in via API. And when it all works, it’s beautiful. It feels clever. It feels like progress.
But I’m starting to believe that some systems should stay analogue. Not as a rejection of technology, but as a form of resilience.
Fragility in the Name of Convenience
Every connected system inherits two things: complexity and dependency.
The moment you add a microcontroller, you’ve added firmware. Add a radio module, you’ve added potential interference. Add a server, and now you’ve added DNS, authentication, sync issues, power reliance. Suddenly, the thing that used to just work, a tap, a valve, a paper calendar; now needs a reboot and a GitHub issue thread.
In exchange, you get visibility. Data. Control. I won’t pretend it’s not useful. I love a good dashboard as much as anyone.
But there’s a cost. Every connection becomes a liability. Every “smart” feature becomes one more point of failure, especially when the system around it gets noisy.
And when failure comes—because it always does, it’s the analogue layers that hold.
The Garden Doesn’t Crash
When the power cuts out, the plants keep growing. When the WiFi drops, the compost keeps decomposing. When the automation stack throws an exception, the sun still rises and the rain still falls.
That’s the elegance of analogue systems: they fail gracefully. They don’t stop. They degrade.
A mechanical rain barrel doesn’t need an app to refill. A trellis doesn’t need a firmware update. A cold frame doesn’t care if your Zigbee mesh is acting up. These systems obey older laws. And those laws still matter.
There’s a kind of power in building systems that don’t require trust. That work regardless of uptime. That simply exist and keep doing what they were designed to do.
We need more of those.
The Human in the Loop
One of the strongest arguments for analogue systems is that they keep the human in the loop.
When I water the garden by hand, I notice things, leaf curl, insect patterns, soil density. When the hose is timed and buried and piped through software, I don’t see those signals until it’s too late.
It’s tempting to outsource observation. To tell ourselves that sensors and alerts will replace attention. But that’s a dangerous trade. Because once you stop looking, you stop knowing. And systems you don’t understand are systems you can’t fix.
Air-gapped systems demand presence. They demand skill. That’s their cost—and their gift.
Air Gaps as Design Philosophy
Air gaps aren’t just technical. They’re philosophical.
They ask:
- What do you trust?
- What should survive a reboot?
- What are you willing to lose to gain visibility, and what’s not worth the risk?
Not everything needs to be air-gapped. But some things should be. And knowing which is which is part of responsible system design.
For me, that might mean:
- Keeping my irrigation manual.
- Relying on hand tools more than powered ones.
- Printing my planting calendar instead of syncing it.
- Building layers that can survive the layers above them collapsing.
It’s not luddism. It’s redundancy by design.
Some Things Shouldn’t Phone Home
The older I get, the more I value systems that don’t require trust, constant updates, or external servers.
Not because I’m nostalgic. But because I’ve seen what failure looks like, when the signal drops, the power cuts out, or the company behind the service shuts down.
And in those moments, I don’t want everything tied to the same brittle stack.
I want systems that run in the dark. That don’t call home. That don’t need an internet connection to grow a tomato.
Some things deserve to stay unplugged. Not because we can’t connect them, but because we shouldn’t have to.
Part of my Garden as System series.