The vendor app says "online" while the firewall drops every byte of outbound traffic. The voice prompt says "router connection unsuccessful" while the device hammers an IP it never resolved. Embedded devices lie to their owners, and most owners can't see it. This talk is the result of putting six embedded devices through the same enforcement lab, a mix of bottom-of-market kit and units from more recognisable vendors, and measuring the gap between what they say and what they do. You walk out with a nine-phase test you can run on your own kit, a four-axis scorecard that survives a procurement meeting, and a way to tell the difference between failing safe and failing by lying.