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Lots of appliances have actual use cases for WiFi. A Fridge for example makes a loud beep if you forgot to close the door and the temperature is too high. But f

Lots of appliances have actual use cases for WiFi. A Fridge for example makes a loud beep if you forgot to close the door and the temperature is too high. But forget the door and leave your house, and you won't hear the beep. A push notification would solve it. One can argue whether such a feature is actually worth having in a fridge (Added costs, security risks, complexity...) But at least it has a valid use case: notification. I just can't imagine a dishwasher having such a use case. Notification for when it's done isn't useful. If I'm not home it makes no difference that it's done, and if I am home it could just beep. Starting it obviously isn't useful either. So what features does wifi offer in a dishwasher? The best I can think of is... Error diagnostics (So I don't have to google "E5" when the flood sensor triggers). But that doesn't seem like enough of a feature to warrant a wifi connection.

jmartinpetersen 5y ago
A pretty useful feature would be to start when electricity prices are low.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  That is actually a useful feature! I wonder if it supports it
- chasd00 5y ago
  use the delay feature on your existing dumb dishwasher to start in the middle of the night.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    Yes that does get you 99% of the way there at least. It does require predicting/assuming the electricity prices though. If they are predictable enough, that's fine. It doesn't quite reach feature parity with actually fetching electricity prices every hour and slowly learning when it's cheapest over many weeks.
    - chasd00 5y ago
      what is the difference between 99% and 100% in the cost of electricity though? 1/50th of a cent?
      - alkonaut 5y ago
        Not sure how much prices can vary over the day, and more importantly how that varies by weekday, season and so on. How much you can make by having an online price service varies with how well you’d be able to “hit” the price dips manually too.
joshuaissac 5y ago
> A Fridge for example makes a loud beep if you forgot to close the door and the temperature is too high. But forget the door and leave your house, and you won't hear the beep. A push notification would solve it. And expect the user to return to the house in the middle of work to close the fridge door? Why can't the fridge close its own door if it is so smart? And if it can, then why does it still need Wi-Fi?

jmartinpetersen 5y ago

A pretty useful feature would be to start when electricity prices are low.

alkonaut 5y ago
That is actually a useful feature! I wonder if it supports it
chasd00 5y ago
use the delay feature on your existing dumb dishwasher to start in the middle of the night.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Yes that does get you 99% of the way there at least. It does require predicting/assuming the electricity prices though. If they are predictable enough, that's fine. It doesn't quite reach feature parity with actually fetching electricity prices every hour and slowly learning when it's cheapest over many weeks.
  - chasd00 5y ago
    what is the difference between 99% and 100% in the cost of electricity though? 1/50th of a cent?
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      Not sure how much prices can vary over the day, and more importantly how that varies by weekday, season and so on. How much you can make by having an online price service varies with how well you’d be able to “hit” the price dips manually too.

joshuaissac 5y ago

> A Fridge for example makes a loud beep if you forgot to close the door and the temperature is too high. But forget the door and leave your house, and you won't hear the beep. A push notification would solve it. And expect the user to return to the house in the middle of work to close the fridge door? Why can't the fridge close its own door if it is so smart? And if it can, then why does it still need Wi-Fi?