This particular homeowner is baffled that anyone would buy a washing machine that needs an internet connection. I’m all for smart appliances, but a smart washing machine is a solution in search of a problem.
Forgotten laundry leads to mildew. Plenty of home assistance scripts out there to remind users to empty washer/dryer.
Makes sense for manufacturers to want to build this feature into the appliance itself.
You don’t need it to be on the appliance itself. Hook a power metering smart outlet and you can tell. Or a shake sensor. Or an open door sensor. Combine them all for a reliable effective way to tell if it’s done and the door has been opened, all for a much lower price than what those “smart” appliances charge the premium for. This way you can also choose vendors that work on local wifi/zigbee/z wave and don’t own a paper weight or part functional item the moment the vendor decides to shutdown the servers.
You can also use it to start a load while you’re at work when you didn’t want your clothes sitting after washing all day. True, there’s old school delay functions but this gives a little more control.
Not saying it’s worth it, but a feature I haven’t seen anyone else mention.
I love mine. It reminds me when to clean it, when the drain is acting up, and when it’s done. It can even order supplies on its own. Sure all those things can be handled with a calendar but I’m lazy.
The drain issue might be hard to figure out on your own. Mine has a little notification light that comes on to run a self-clean cycle every x number of washes, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in my house who actually runs it.
For me it isn’t about knowing when it’s done, it’s about it continuously annoying me if I still haven’t flipped it an hour later
While I don’t have a smart washing machine, I use a smart power outlet to let me know when the laundry is done, remind me if the load is still sitting in the washer without moving to the drier, etc.
Definitely some legit use cases to make the process smart.
Idk, in my particular situation I would like a smart washing machine. I have a smart fridge, that is essentially useless, but a smart washing machine would tell me when my laundry was done so I can switch it into the dryer. That actually seems useful in my particular situation.
When your current washer breaks to the point of being unrepairable, you will find the only choice is an Internet connected washer.
I bought the same model Bosch dishwasher that I bought last year ( I have 2 dishwashers). Bosch added Internet to their dishwashers this year. I was enraged but had no choice. They removed some wash features from buttons and made them selectable only from the app. I haven’t turned the feature on but there’s Wi-Fi in my dishwasher screaming to get out to the Internet. It could likely be hijacked with the right bot attack.
We need a law that all antennas come with a physical switch. Wifi, Cell, whatever comes next. They need a physical cut off switch just like privacy doors have become common on laptop cameras.
I simply will not buy a washing machine where some of the options for its regular use require an internet connection. I can see adding Bluetooth to it for things like remote control and phone notifications, or even WLAN support for connecting to some kind of smarthome hub that is internet-connected so you can get those notifications remotely. But the idea that smart == device-level internet connection is terrible. Appliances for basic living requirements, like laundry, should not require an internet connection of their own to function.
I don’t think any need an internet connection…
But some people connect everything they can for some reason.
This is an old article and iirc this was a reporting issue with their router. The wash machine was not using that much data.
Who’s to say it isn’t acting as a gateway for other smart devices that aren’t connected to the Internet? Or part of a bot net?
Another relatively innocent reason for the supposed high volume of uploads could be an error in the Asus router firmware.
Note the language could be.
Why the fuck does my appliance need wifi? It’s not ordering refills for consumables when low at a great discount nor is it going to schedule it’s own maintenance as it passes lifetime milestones or detects errors.
I don’t want my fucking washer/dryer to text me when the load is done and I definitely don’t want my fridge to alert me I’m low on milk or bread, or the door is open. That’s such a huge backdoor for anyone looking to maliciously gather data and peer into my life, definitely without my consent.
Glad I bought a non-smart washer and dryer. I’ve yet to encounter any situation in life where I thought, “too bad my appliance doesn’t have Internet”. Not once ever.
I think my oven/stove can be connected. I have never tried because I don’t see the need to preheat my oven when I am not home.
Maybe unpopular opinion but I like connected stuff. I like what you can do with modern tech. I think it’s cool to have a coffee maker or something hooked up to Home Assistant so you can start a brew from your phone when you wake up.
What I don’t like is when I can’t control the tech. The only way I’d ever allow smart appliances is if the data never left my network and I took reasonable steps to ensure the IOT devices are isolated and secured.
Now the Chinese government knows exactly how many socks have gone missing, but no it won’t tell you where they all went.
You already have a phone in your hand just put an alarm on there. There are you eliminated the supposed use of internet on a washer.
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I dunno, isn’t the homeowner an idiot for putting a smart washer on WiFi in the first place? We don’t need smart devices, they aren’t making our lives better.
Solution in search of a problem.
I guess a mobile alert that lets you know the cycle is finished could be handy? Ability to schedule a load to start later? Maybe a maintenance or problem alert? Depleted detergent and fabric softener reservoir?
Possibly an energy usage chart for the nerds out there who like that kind of thing?
But damn, all of that shouldn’t need more than a few kb a day max.
I always thought a simple analog speaker output could solve most of those. Let us string a wire to a remote speaker nearer to where we’re likely to be
I have a supposedly smart washing machine that came with the apartment. Setting it up in my locked down appliances network, it didn’t work with home-assistant, required cloud access and wanted me to open up ports in the firewall. Nope. No network connection for you. You are a regular dumb old washing machine.
Homeowner should be baffled at why he was
- Stupid enough to waste money on a fucking internet connected washing machine
- Stupid enough to connect it to the fucking internet
- Stupid enough to be surprised at it doing shady shit.
If you think the useless appliances are bad, just take a look at more critical connected devices.
I needed some POE security cameras, found some foscam ones on the cheap. Plug them up, go to IP, “install our app”… was pleased to find it allowed a local account without the need for an email, but found that half of my network traffic was comprised of requests to their “ivyIOT AI detection”. I didnt measure what data was going through before sectioning them behind a firewall zone.
My fault for not having looked further into other brands, they were still a bargain and work without issue with my setup, but annoying
Laundering Bitcoins
Gotta transfer all your dirt.
I just bought a new dishwasher and it came with “smart” features like remote start and notifications, which I don’t want. Easy solution: I didn’t connect it to my wifi.
On the positive side, the manufacturer (Bosch) wasn’t pushy about it at all. The only indication that the machine has smart features was a small instruction card, which I promptly tossed in the recycling.
