The latest firmware, and perhaps a few revisions prior, seems to require all WIFI passwords to be a minimum of 8 characters in length. Because I am the steward of a couple of K1Max printers in a makerspace, we need to be able to connect these printers to unsecured WIFI, with a zero-length password. I have downgraded to v1.3.3.5 to reconnect our printer to our wifi, but in the future allowing a zero-length password in addition to requiring a minimum length of 8 would serve both requirements.
Welcome to the community.
Yes, this obsession with forcing extra security onto systems that are already adequately secured is endemic to the software developer mindset. Thankfully, they do not build homes. If they did, once you were already inside your own house, they would still require a 26-character password, your thumb on the doorknob, and your big toe against the wall before allowing you into your own bedroom. Then they would impose the same absurd protocol on the toilet seat, and the moment you stood up, it would slam shut and lock again for your protection.
That is only possible because so many developers begin with the same flattering assumption: the user is an idiot, and they are the only adult in the room. Every added layer of friction becomes a virtue, every loss of control becomes “security,” and every objection is treated as proof that the user is too stupid to understand the brilliance of what was done to them. They do not merely think they are the smartest people in the room. They are so deeply convinced of it that they build software as if the rest of us should be grateful to be managed by them. One need look no further than Microsoft for evidence of this but Creality is guilty too.