24 ms·
Bob Cassette Rewinder: Hacking Detergent DRM
- dreamcompiler 4y ago"The Internet of S̶h̶i̶t̶ Things interprets DRM chipped consumables as damage and routes around them."
- jkestner 4y agoA big note of appreciation for the writeup. These are the service manuals of the future.
- andai 4y ago>Detergent DRM The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. (...) The continued development of technology will worsen the situation.
- marcinzm 4y ago>The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. I'll take detergent DRM any day over being a medieval serf.
- Fauntleroy 4y agoSame. But capitalism's driving force, profit above all, is simply going to consume everything in the end.
- marcinzm 4y agoGrowth above all else is in many ways humanities driving force.
- guerrilla 4y agoNonsense, humans are no different than any other animals and survive best in equilibrium and always die out in cases of uncontrolled growth.
- marcinzm 4y ago>Nonsense, humans are no different than any other animals and survive best in equilibrium and always die out in cases of uncontrolled growth. Yet left on their own they will uncontrollably grow like what happens with invasive species. Then they'll collapse. Repeat a few times and some type of equilibrium may happen for a while until something else breaks it. Animals have no magic "equilibrium" sense but rather the surviving ones have evolved to have an equilibrium with their environment. That doesn't even mean the animal changed genetically but rather that other animals (ie: the environment) did to provide competition.
- guerrilla 4y ago> Animals have no magic "equilibrium" sense but rather the surviving ones have evolved to have an equilibrium with their environment. There's nothing magic about persistence balance in nature. It happens in millions of ecosystems.
- paskozdilar 4y agoIf it was just detergent DRM, I'd probably agree with you.
- Semaphor 4y agoSo which parts are bad enough that you’d prefer medieval serfdom?
- paskozdilar 4y agoNoise pollution is my number one. There is simply no way to escape it living in the city, and there are no job opportunities for software engineers on the countryside (not that it's perfect on the countryside either - given all the motor-based tractors, chainsaws, lawnmowers, leafblowers...). I hate it and it's driving me crazy and all I want is peace and quiet, but apparently, that's too much to ask and I'm spoiled and it's all in my head and I should shut the fuck up and stop bothering the noisemakers. There are many others that I can't think of right now, I don't really keep a list.
- throwaway09223 4y agoWhen I worked in San Francisco I lived in a quiet suburb a few miles from BART. I couldn't hear much of anything. In any event, nowadays it's extremely easy to get a full time remote gig and live in a truly remote location - especially factoring in lower cost of living. This doesn't seem like an actual problem. Actually, it seems like the industrial revolution has provided an idyllic outcome for people in your situation.
- paskozdilar 4y agoThat's a good point, and one I have considered many times. It has its tradeoffs. I suppose right now it's much more important for me to be close to humans and to learn and develop myself, so it's a necessity for me to be here. Once I get a good enough remote job I will definitely move somewhere far away from everything.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoIt's not a dichotomy though. I've got a boring dishwasher which works fine and I'm not a medieval serf, so I get the benefits of the industrial revolution and the big scientific leap (or to use hipster phrasing, I've got a dishwasher robot) at the expense of money (a new dishwasher would be a week's worth of wages).
- cjbgkagh 4y agoIt’s a prescient manifesto by Ted Kaczynski (an MKUltra’ed domestic terrorist). I often show it to friends who doubt that todays state of mass manipulation and over socialization could have been predicted. I highly recommend reading it. His killing people to get it published put me off reading it, but a friend recommended it so I relented. I found it a good read. I should point out that the consequence he was warning about was being made into a techno serf and that the danger was so great that it was worth abandoning technological comforts to prevent it.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoYou’re seriously recommending the manifesto of an anarchist that lived in a cabin in the woods without running water and sent dozens of mail bombs to innocent people? Come on, you can’t find something to support your ideas that doesn’t help glorify random murders?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI am recommending it. He is clearly a smart person. If it was the ravings of a lunatic I would not. He is not a random murderer, he was psychologically tortured by the government as part of MKUltra before he killed anyone.
- UmbertoNoEco 4y agoYou just need to get on with the times. To read somebody now, you must: A) Be sure that whatever they wrote you agree 100% with. B) That person must share your full worldview and must have a pristine moral reputation. Anything else is dangerous, wrong and frankly subversive so I dont mind if you get punished by violating these simple principles.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
- whywhywhywhy 4y agoYou still are a serf, stop paying your taxes and see what happens.
- paskozdilar 4y agoThat quote (and the work it is taken from) is becoming more relevant by the day. I am very pessimistic about the future and I don't believe that we can fight against the enormous power that technology gives to those that can use it on a massive scale. I just hope that the eventual dictator will be a "soft-hearted leftist" and decide to turn the world into a huge human zoo, instead of some sadistic overlord that will turn the world into a huge human cage. EDIT: soundtrack for today: "1000 eyes" by Death
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI always considered that work to be optimistic in that he considered the predicted dystopian future to be avoidable. I never did. The ability to manipulate humans with technology is improving more rapidly than the ability to resist manipulation and there is no way to stop it.
- WJW 4y agoI personally quite enjoy many of the things that the industrial revolution has brought us, such as cheap and ubiquitous electricity, food safety, the internet and even cheap countertop dishwashing machines. Detergent DRM is a bit much though.
- throwaway09223 4y agoThe kicker here is that the "industrial revolution" (aka, not living hand to mouth and dying in the wilderness) also provides a way to avoid things like dishwasher DRM. Now this guy has a product that solves the problem: https://www.tindie.com/products/dekuNukem/bob-rewinder-renew-your-bob-dishwasher-cassette/ https://www.tindie.com/products/dekuNukem/bob-rewinder-renew... The real problem here isn't the availability of technology as much as broken laws which prevent us from modifying the things we own to best suit our needs. I don't have much issue with selling convenience. Most people I know will happily pay multiples of an optimal price for small convenience (most people I know will buy bottled water). As long as the law doesn't interfere with people who want to add their own caustics and detergent this way, then what's the actual issue?
- refurb 4y agoExactly I hate the industrial revolution. I much preferred getting a splinter and then dying of a bacterial infection a week later. Edit: in case anyone was wondering, the industrial revolution, namely the dye industry, started mass production of antibiotics, without the industrial revolution = no antibiotics
- concordDance 4y agoWhat's that have to do with the industrial revolution? Also, do you know what the adult life expectancy was in pre-industrial times?
- secondcoming 4y agoWhat has DRM got to do with the Steam Engine?
- paskozdilar 4y agoSteam implements DRM: https://blackshellmedia.com/2017/06/28/steam-employs-drm-means-game/ https://blackshellmedia.com/2017/06/28/steam-employs-drm-mea... Non-joke answer: DRM wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Steam Engine. That argument is central to anarcho-primitivism - industrial society will enslave people more and more through technology, and there is no way to prevent it, therefore industrial revolution is a mistake.
- lupire 4y agoAnd yet you haven't decided to move to a remote bush village, which you could easily afford to do.
- FridayoLeary 4y agoNor would you, in all probability.
- paskozdilar 4y agoOkay.
- skocznymroczny 4y agoWell, most games did not have online DRM and such until Steam spearheaded the way. You needed to activate the game online through Steam to play Half-Life 2, in a move very criticized back then. Fast forward 15 years and people are threatening not to buy the game unless it's released on their DRM platform of choice.
- lettergram 4y agoShould read - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto > "We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society's standards. That, and we're too plugged in. We're letting technology take over our lives, willingly."
- Nicksil 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto
- mrtksn 4y agoIt's just a business model, similar with printers, coffee capsules, software and music. Essentially, the idea is that you get your payment for your work and resources over the course of use without using intermediary for financing the customer. You spend the resources upfront(record music, film a movie, produce appliance and give it away for cheap) and later you enforce payment per use where usage almost doesn't cost you anything. From consumers perspective, you can achieve similar savings on games, music, movies and software if you use torrent trackers and a seedbox. IMHO, it's only a problem when prevents legitimate use cases like lending it to a friend(was not a problem with DVDs, huge problem with DRM protected video purchases).
- gjsman-1000 4y agoAnother reason to repeal DMCA Section 1201.
- alaricus 4y agoHow long do you think it takes Microsoft to take down this repo?
- shalmanese 4y agoGiven that the repo has already been up for 15 months now, the answer is "at least 15 months".
- causality0 4y agoI see the point of that dishwasher for someone who doesn't have easy access to a sink like a student in a dorm, but I can't fathom why you'd put one in a house or apartment. With such a tiny capacity you're better off hand washing.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoI feel like my full size dishwasher doesn’t hold enough dishes…
- seu 4y agoExactly. And especially considering the costs, which would have been very easy to calculate before purchasing the thing.
- ameesdotme 4y agoBob- and apartment-owner here. We have a small kitchen and just don't have the space for a full-sized dishwasher. Bob fits snugly in the cabinet under the sink and runs once a day for a 2-person household. It's perfect for our needs and saves us a lot of both time and water.
- kilroy123 4y agoI'm guessing you're not from Europe? Most flats are very small and there's simply no space for a traditional, large American style dishwasher.
- Wohlf 4y ago
- kache_ 4y agounnecessary DRM like this should be illegal
- refurb 4y agoPrecisely. Congress should get off their butts and decide what kind of washing machine America needs. I hate having to choose between glossy black and matte black finishes. Why won't Chuck Schumer help me?
- px43 4y agoYou can't outlaw stupid. It would be nice if things like this that were obviously "anti-competitive" were treated as such though. Maybe a nice exception for bypassing anti-competitive DRM carved out specifically in the DMCA, or something like that.
- alaricus 4y agoDRM should be illegal.
- Panzer04 4y agoThere's no DRM though? This just looks like the simplest thing the engineers could have done - the only extra change they could have made is not requiring a cassette be present, I guess.
- jffry 4y agoSee prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880
- mariusmg 4y agoFor some reason my brain was "disputing" the word "Detergent" when reading the title, i thought it was "Deterrent" misspelled :)
- sschueller 4y agoTalking about a 20 year old dishwasher in the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31555629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31555629 post I doubt this company will still sell you a cartridge in 20 years making it yet another paper weight although it would still function.
- boudin 4y agoThe cassette is not required, it also works with standard detergent
- tomrod 4y agoI am, more and more, deliberately choosing boring technology. Knobs in the car and on appliances. No screen interfaces. Low-tech where possible. We just replaced our "high tech" Maytag dryer and its "advanced" feature set for a low tech SpeedQueen, the same dryers you find in most Laundromats. Why? Repairability. While we could _technically_ replace the burnt out fuse in the Maytag, it would take at least two hours for a skilled technician (translated to several days for me and my spouse spread across a few weeks) and frankly we want to repair and get back to life. After a few days of looking into the issue and considering the option, we bit the bullet and bought a new one. The old one just had too many fault modes to consider even if we did successfully repair it. I take the same neo-Luddite view on a lot of recent "technology" improvements. The BoringTechnology.club website has the right idea.
- throwxxxaway 4y agoCan it be that we are just getting old? The new generation will have their brains wired to ignore ads, will be ok with devices spying on them (it will be called something else). And we will be something like that grandpa that can't unblock the mobile phone. (for example, use that new blockchain smart contract to open the fridge and order some food NFTs)
- bombcar 4y agoWe are getting old - but part of getting old is remembering things that could be repaired instead of thrown away.
- sgtnoodle 4y agoThe door on our $1200 2 year old refrigerator started cracking at the hinge. I had a credit card warranty on it, so I foolishly tried to hire an appliance repair company to fix it. They charged $150 to look at it for 10 minutes and say all they could do is replace the whole door, and quoted $900. I spent 45 minutes fixing it myself with some extruded aluminum and some rivets. The warranty coverage allowed for self-repair, so I ended up "earning" roughly my equivalent hourly rate as a software engineer.
- marcodiego 4y agoImagine how much we're wasting with inkjet printers.
- praptak 4y agoHacking inkjets to use continuous refill has been a thing for like 20 years at least. I mean I don't know the current situation (a happy laser printer user here) but last time I checked you could buy kits to convert many inkjet printers to just refill from a bottle.
- popcalc 4y agoInkOwl is a godsend for public school teachers.
- skocznymroczny 4y agoI bought a cheap black and white laser printer and it's been working great for me. I don't print that much, and if I do it's text anyway or things like plane tickets which don't need color. I don't have to worry about refilling four inks at once, I don't have to worry about ink spilling.
- thrdbndndn 4y agoNot gonna like, this dishwasher looks ridiculously ineffective even without DRM.
- dreamcompiler 4y agoIn older buildings in Europe it's a royal pain to install or upgrade plumbing for a dishwasher or washing machine, or even install a dryer vent to the outdoors. Plus kitchens are often quite tiny by US standards. This device shines in that market.
- lots2learn 4y agoInteresting how there are still many internet connected products that don't have subscription fees and don't (as far as I can tell) track and sell my info. Some stuff from my home: Lutron Caseta lights, Bali motorized blinds, Secure360 outdoor security lights, MyQ garage opener, simplisafe entry sensors, cameras, and door lock (assuming you don't pay for the monitoring service). LG thinq products also (fridge, oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer) minus LG tvs (which I believe sell my info/deliver ads). Most of these products are something a household would buy once in many years (if ever a second time). So what's the business model here? High up front cost to subsidize the service for X number of years? There has to be some point where they are losing money on old customers.
- FridayoLeary 4y agoThere is still a market for one-time purchases. I'm not surprised if companies don't build planned obsolescence into blinds, doorlocks, cameras and ovens.
- _0ffh 4y agoAfter reading through the thing, I don't see any DRM at all. Just a simple counter for the machine to know when the cartridge is empty. Frankly, I feel deliberately mislead by the headline, as seems to be getting the norm these days. Edit: Kindly tell me where I'm wrong.
- lb1lf 4y agoAs far as the average end user is concerned, this amounts to the same thing as full-blown DRM; rather than being allowed to do the sensible and (for you as a consumer) cost-effective thing, this counter forces you to replenish detergent supplies at an artificially inflated price.
- _0ffh 4y agoArticle: "you can [...] add detergents manually [...] however they strongly suggest against this", so I can't see how anybody is forced to buy the cartridges. Also, they did obviously not put any work in making their "DRM" secure. At the most, they're hoping that people would buy the expensive new cartridges, because it's more convenient than manually adding the detergent. It's a grey zone at best.
- himinlomax 4y agoUsing regular bulk detergent is supported, it's not a printer ink situation. The cartridges are just slightly more convenient.
- poulpy123 4y agoI had to click on the link to be sure it was really a detergent for a washing machine. I feel like we are all becoming crazy
- tyingq 4y agoI wonder if you could just tie pin 7 (VCC) to pin 8 (Write Protect). I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they didn't check for success on the write. Would be a much simpler hack.
- mgdlbp 4y agoYep, exactly that is also described on the tutorial page. https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/master/user_manual.md#can-i-enable-write-protect-wp-to-lock-out-wash-count https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/mast... (Hmm, the images are loading in way after my browser has scrolled to the anchor, pushing it far offscreen--first time I've had that in a while, actually)
- tux1968 4y agoWell, now that everything is understood, there is no need for every user to get destructive with a cartridge (it's not easy to access the board) in order to tie those pins together.
- tyingq 4y agoLooks easy enough to me if you have a dremel and a cutting disk. Then you just solder the one you removed/modified into the 4 wires in the machine, leaving the machine socket wired to nothing. And never mess with it again.
- darkwater 4y agoBut then you would have to manually keep count of the used cycles to know when manually refill the cassette.
- dgb23 4y agoA funny quote if you put on your layman's glasses: > It's simply a 24C02 EEPROM with 4.7K pull-ups on I2C lines, a bypass cap, and some diodes, probably for reverse-insertion protection.
- mgdlbp 4y agoHence the Rewinder as a product: just plug it into the cassette and reprogram at the press of a button.
- tinco 4y agoIt is very heavy on the jargon indeed. Just in case someone's wondering, the author isn't being facetious it really is a very simple thing. If you google 24C02 you'll get a PDF that probably has this exact schematic in the application examples section. If you want to take up electronics design as a hobby, you'd probably be at the level where you could have this designed and manufactured within a month or two of evening/weekends studies. edit: Just for fun, let's go through the jargon. 24C02 EEPROM is the name of a popular chip that stores a tiny bit of persistent memory. Mouser at the moment has more than 80 variations of this chip with hundreds of thousands in stock and hundreds of thousands more in back order. 4.7k pull-ups, this means there's a small resistor between the signal lines and the positive voltage rail. This enables the chip to communicate by pulling the signal low (by shorting it to ground) this way of signalling is very common, someone told me it's because how the telegraph worked but I'm not sure if that's true. I2C is a simple communication protocol that works if chips are really close together (i.e. I think guideline is within 10-15cm). A bypass capacitor is a component that blocks continuous voltage but lets oscillating voltage through. Most chips don't deal well with oscillating voltages on their power supplies so the manufacturer will recommend you (through that PDF I mentioned before) to put a bypass capacitor between the power supply line and the ground, so that the dirty oscillations go directly to ground instead of into your chip. A diode is a component where current can only go in one direction, in this case that's handy because chips usually break if you wire them in reverse polarity. If a user would force this cartridge in backwards, instead of the chip blowing up, the diodes will simply block the current from coming in the wrong way and the device won't work. And that's it, I think all you need to understand how this cartridge is designed.
- 4y ago
- dylan604 4y agoohmuhgawd! Until now, I had never seen this "tech". It is so obviously the ink jet of washers. why on earth would this seem like a good idea to anyone other than the manufacturer knowing the ink jet games that could be played. as a consumer why would this ever sound like a good enough idea to actually purchase?
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago> as a consumer why would this ever sound like a good enough idea to actually purchase? Because as far as I know, there's no competing small sized kitchen-countertop dishwasher; that said, there's enough money on HN and its investors to start a company that does the same thing without the DRM and custom cartridges.
- dylan604 4y agoBut isn't in the HN investor types that push startups to do things exactly like this to monetize quicker so they can get their ROI sooner? Startup: We have a product/service that we can offer that will make money. Investor: If you collect/sell data, sell ads, etc, you can make more money. Startup: We don't want to go down that path. Investor: I want my money NOW!
- boudin 4y agoIt's mentioned briefly in the writeup but those cardridges are not needed, the dishwasher works with standard tablets as well. It's sold as a convenience thing.
- Aardwolf 4y ago> No need to manually measure and add detergent each wash, very convenient! No difference between adding a dishwasher tablet in the detergent holder of a regular machine. In both cases you're manually adding 1 item into the machine. Except in the case of the dishwasher tablet, it comes from a box of 40 that you can easily buy in any supermarket.
- AdrianB1 4y agoIn this case you put a pop case in the machine once every 30 washes.
- Eric_WVGG 4y ago… and the makers of the dishwasher even sell their own dishwasher tablets. The DRM cartridges are totally optional! Fun device though, buying a similar countertop dishwasher was without question the best purchase of my adult life.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lozenge 4y agoI wonder if the covid chip shortage caused them to give up on their DRM?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dagurp 4y agoI will never buy tablets or those little bags after watching Technology Connections https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04
- Waterluvian 4y agoWow. So I'm watching the Techmoan review and it's just amazing. You've got this pretty awesome product.... up until you can clearly see the business types shoving their grubby hands in the way of UX and good engineering. Oh no no no. We can't just sell a product. We need recurring revenue. So we'll make DRM proprietary detergent pods that require electronics in each one. Ah, but people will reject that because they know (and we clearly know) it's a horrible product design. So we'll include an option to just use your own. Of course, we'll turn the screws over time, incentivising use of our proprietary detergent until eventually we just get rid of the other option. That whole thing seems to offer absolutely no added value to the customer. It's just making a good product inferior in order to grift more money from the customer. If your business model requires this kind of thing, you should feel unceasing shame and failure.
- javajosh 4y agoDevil's advocate: the only reason the product is so nice is because the grubby handed business types could raise the money by promising MRR to the investors. Reverse devil's advocate: and this is why hacking is so essential, so that some of us get to have our cake (meticulously and expensively designed stuff) and eat it too (opt out of MRR). Although this does create a new kind of 1%, but its one based on merit so its okay?
- Waterluvian 4y agoI agree there's an argument to be made for the mechanics of capitalism to create such a product. I think it's still disgusting and shameful. I also think, as I think you're pointing out, we should be incredibly careful to appreciate that over 99% of customers won't have any awareness of, or capacity to hack the problem away.
- jsymolon 4y agoInteresting story on how it could go. Unauthorized Bread, Cory Doctorow https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
- javajosh 4y agoAm I the only one who looks at these projects with a combination of awe and apathy and jealousy? I do software, not hardware, and I like knowing how things work. When an expert in a different field glances at a PCB and identifies components, their purpose, by sight, and then rummages around a loose parts bin to go deeper, it dawns on me: this is someone's life. The same way I've been swimming in (application) software, and could do similar things with a repo, or even running processes, this person can do in hardware, and it's a set of interlocking skills that took an entire life to grow.
- kosma 4y agoYou just described my joy of doing hardware better than I would have been able to describe it myself. Thank you.
- cybrox 4y agoThere's something very enjoyable about seeing knowledgable people dissecting things. As someone who can do - and has done - both hardware and software work, I also understand why people like to share these experiences. Every step in reverse engineering is a huge success and a nice boost of you ego, confirming that your accumulated skillset is powerful.
- xattt 4y agoConsider this a metaphor for any field expert. A chef looks in a fridge and sees a combination of ingredients that will make a tasty dish. A teacher looks at a struggling student and sees what strategies will help them succeed. A lawyer looks at a case and sees specific circumstances that help come to an ideal solution.
- layer8 4y agoI believe you could get to that particular level (identifying and reprogramming an I2C EEPROM) pretty quickly as a software engineer. Just get started!
- incanus77 4y agoI’m here to say that you can. I spent many years in pure, high level software, but about five years ago, got an interest in electronics. Started with a learning kit, but just kept at it and now a project like this, while impressive, is 100% within my understanding and, while not underestimating or discrediting the amount of work and ingenuity put in by the author, my abilities. You can do it! Look to places like SparkFun and Adafruit to get started.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- RektBoy 4y agoOP, any chance you dump their firmware from dishwasher? If people have this connected to net, it could be fun.
- walski 4y agoSeems to have gained a lot of popularity since it's last posting a year ago :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26787002 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26787002
- mgdlbp 4y agoThat post went directly to the product page, but having 'Hacking' and 'DRM' in the title probably didn't hurt the previous submission of the repo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880 1260 points | 2021-05-02 | 406 comments
- walski 4y agoI knew I saw this here! Very likely on that submission. Thanks for digging.
- ElDji 4y agoSo their business model is to basically sell plastic and detergent at very high price using DRM.
- belval 4y agoThe article is cool but: "£43 ($60) for 90 washes" is roughly in line with puck-style detergent, might even be a bit cheaper so it's not THAT outrageous to me. Not that we should overpay for no reason, but I thought it's still important context.
- chinathrow 4y agoSo we overpay for puck-style detergent too then.
- lapser 4y agoNot sure what you mean with "puck-style" detergent, but here in the UK, I always tend to buy 100 dishwasher tablets for £12, which works out to £0.12 per wash, and Rinse Aid for £3.50, for which the company claims 80 washes (though I haven't measured), which works out to £0.044 per wash, for a total of £0.164 per wash. £43 for 90 washes is pretty outrageous.
- Scoundreller 4y agoAnd these are much smaller washes.
- bloomingeek 4y agoBrilliant! I looked at one of those too a while back. Didn't realize they had gone the way of printers who get you addicted to their product and keep stringing you along. :)
- low_tech_love 4y agoMaybe this is an unpopular opinion, but if you buy a product because you like it and admire the design and engineering on it, isn't this type of hacking actually a disservice to the company who made it? I mean, I'm not saying this should never be explored (hacking is fun), but in a way you're cutting the resources from the company and potentially helping to bring it down. After all, a business is not made only on top of "cost + small profit percentage". Maybe their business model requires such prices and is impossible without them (especially if it's a small company).
- prasadjoglekar 4y agoHacking is capitalism at it's best. If someone else can do the same thing faster/better/cheaper, then they should! No one owes your business anything - certainly not patronage for bad ideas.
- j-bos 4y agoJust for fun: Maybe this is a popular opinion, but if you sell a product because you want people to continue giving you money and freedom to make make money, isn't it a this type of DRMing actually a disservice to the guy who gave you money? After all person is not made only to prop up companies. Maybe their life requires not ballooning costs on brand name generics and is impoverished without them (especially if it's a family). The idea of buying to transfer ownership in exchange for a good. Ownership implies responsibility for the single good purchased, not for the coalition of sellers who relinquished their claim in exchange for my wealth.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- UmbertoNoEco 4y agoPlenty of John Deer loving farmers would disagree with you.
- ok123456 4y agoNo. Someone else decided to do some 'growth hacking' on a finished product. This sort of feature isn't something that originated from the person doing the actual design.
- vultour 4y agoHad a look through the website, and while the headline sounds pretty upsetting I think it's important to note that the thing works just fine with regular detergent tablets. This DRM'd monstrosity seems to be an "upgrade" so you don't have to manually put detergent in every time.
- z3ugma 4y agoI love reverse engineering. I've done it a few times in software to pull the encryption keys out of proprietary vendor software to be able to decrypt the customer/consumer files they write on disk. Has anyone put together a list of RE "use cases" like this one where people are looking for help solving the puzzle?
- chriscjcj 4y agoNice to see that after being let go from Microsoft, Bob is doing something productive albeit menial.
- shaman1 4y agoWhy buy such a thing in the first place? It's 300e and for that money you can buy a full sized one. I'm seeing similar priced mini dishwashers on amazon. As a sensible cosnumer you should have considered buying something standard and invest you time in something else. If they would sell the dishwashers and 1/2 price and rely on recurrent income from detergent that's a different story but in this case I see no really reason why would someone even consider it. Let these companies bite the dust.
- nicbou 4y agoNot everyone has room for a dishwasher in their kitchen
- shaman1 4y agoAs I mentioned, there are many similar mini dishwashers or table top dishwashers in the 300e price bracket.
- Graziano_M 4y agoIt's often against your lease agreement to hook up anything to your water lines.
- benhurmarcel 4y agoThe entire reason why this category of small dishwashers exist is because some people don’t have space for a full sized one.
- ssl232 4y agoReminds me of the Juicero [1]: an attempt to bring DRM to fruit juice. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ
- lostgame 4y agoI often wonder what the CEO and investors of Juicero actually felt when the video of the ease to self-squeeze was released. I can't imagine that level of just instantly knowing everything you've worked on is absolutely fucked and there can be absolutely no recovery or hope for it.
- squarefoot 4y agoGreat project and writeup; just one more example why we should always be cautious about "smart" devices, for that smartness nearly always aimed at eliminating customers choices. I wonder what does the device electronics do beyond checking for the original cassette and its eeprom; it doesnt seem it would have to do anything more complex than opening water, and detergent valves/pumps for a certain time while keeping the right temperature; nothing that even the simplest uC and couldn't do; a further development could involve probing all signals at sensors and actuators during normal operation, then getting rid of the old electronic to allow the device taking detergents directly from the tanks, so resetting the cassette eeprom wouldn't be needed anymore because there would be no need to insert one. This of course would invalidate the warranty, but for some of us that is a plus point:)
- thisisjasononhn 4y agoThis was a fantastic read! The Bob seems like a very cool device for those in specific situations (small apartment, van-life, etc). I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for similar write-ups, whether tech related or anything else really? I was thoroughly engaged with this in a way I can't seem to get with books or many other articles and written documentation.
- kkdaemas 4y agoThis is true cyberpunk.
- Scoundreller 4y agoI wonder if OP did things the hard way. I2C eeproms, including their 24C02 has a write-protect line. They could probably enable write protection and the chip would never decrement. Just cut WP off from gnd and attach to vcc (with a pull-up for good measure), or vice-versa and voila. Depends if the machine’s MCU verifies writeability or if the decrement actually happened and cares. Early paytv satellite systems didn’t care…
- castratikron 4y agoWondering the same!
- Scoundreller 4y agoI didn’t read their other guide, but yea, they did that. You do have to keep track of your reservoir manually. https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/master/user_manual.md#can-i-enable-write-protect-wp-to-lock-out-wash-count https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/mast... > The easiest way is to melt the solder on the WP pin, and gently lift it up off the pads so it is no longer making contact (And then bridge it to vcc). FYI for anyone that breaks the pin, you can usually scrape into the chip a bit and solder onto the rest of the leg past the point of fracture.
- xrd 4y agoWouldn't it have been better to use rot13 instead of this? 0xa1 is calculated as Washes left XOR 0x50
- Frenchgeek 4y agoI should buy one for my own but turns out you can put detergent between washing cycles, as long as you don't connect the dishwasher to a water line (well, I didn't check the other way around to be fair) So I'm still weighting the convenience of turning it on and forgetting about it versus being able to buy the detergent for cheap at the mall... Finding where you can buy the correct products for the cartridges can be quite the puzzle, last time I found a cheap-ish one with a "nice" 99€ delivery charge.
- cvccvroomvroom 4y agoThe Juicero of washing machines deserves to be hacked for trying to waste money and plastic through anti-consumer proprietary DRM.
- retSava 4y agoThat connector cassette <-> washing machine does not look very robust to me. 50-100 insertions?
- a4isms 4y agoLate observation, but... This feels like the perfect dishwasher to wash your glassware after using your Juicero! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicero