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Watched a video on this several months ago [0]. I find the idea of inferring some stuff about the washing machine and dryer from a smart plug, but keeping the u

Watched a video on this several months ago [0]. I find the idea of inferring some stuff about the washing machine and dryer from a smart plug, but keeping the unit itself dumb is pretty good compromise. I mostly want a notification when the washer finishes in case I don't hear the beep, but I don't need to add yet another thing that needs access to wifi, talks to the cloud or otherwise messes with my privacy. Bonus points: CV to watch for the done LED on the washer or audio processing to hear the done noise on the dryer, but both of those have broader privacy/computational load implications that make them seem less than worth it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVOI3T9IVe0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVOI3T9IVe0

cmclaughlin 4y ago
I typically set a timer as reminder to switch the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer by voice, e.g “ok Google set a 1 hour timer”. Or I set a timer in my phone. You must have a lot of free time if you’re engineering anything more complicated than that!
- thenewwazoo 4y ago
  Many newer washers and dryers have sensors, and will adjust runtime on the fly. In my house, we joke about "washing time units", which are most definitely not minutes, and sometimes go up as the wash progresses.
toast0 4y ago
> CV to watch for the done LED If you're ok obscuring the LED, you can probably tape any sort of light sensitive component on top and use that to sense the done indicator without modifying the machine. Photodiode, phototransitor, whatevs, should be easy enough to hook it up to a microcontroller and do your bidding. You could even make a replacement done indicator. You might need to tune it carefully depending on how much light bleeds between the different indicators. If you're willing to modify the machine, you can probably rewire the done led to be more useful.
barbazoo 4y ago
If you already have home assistant or a similar system in place, it's very easy to do using a power consumption sensing smart plug. I'm using a Tasmota flashed Sonoff plug and read its "_energy_power" sensor and automate based on that. Nothing leaves my house in that scenario.

cmclaughlin 4y ago

I typically set a timer as reminder to switch the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer by voice, e.g “ok Google set a 1 hour timer”. Or I set a timer in my phone. You must have a lot of free time if you’re engineering anything more complicated than that!

thenewwazoo 4y ago
Many newer washers and dryers have sensors, and will adjust runtime on the fly. In my house, we joke about "washing time units", which are most definitely not minutes, and sometimes go up as the wash progresses.

toast0 4y ago

> CV to watch for the done LED If you're ok obscuring the LED, you can probably tape any sort of light sensitive component on top and use that to sense the done indicator without modifying the machine. Photodiode, phototransitor, whatevs, should be easy enough to hook it up to a microcontroller and do your bidding. You could even make a replacement done indicator. You might need to tune it carefully depending on how much light bleeds between the different indicators. If you're willing to modify the machine, you can probably rewire the done led to be more useful.

barbazoo 4y ago

If you already have home assistant or a similar system in place, it's very easy to do using a power consumption sensing smart plug. I'm using a Tasmota flashed Sonoff plug and read its "_energy_power" sensor and automate based on that. Nothing leaves my house in that scenario.