24 ms·

Doing laundry on campus without a phone

340 points by barbarr 3y ago

jefurii 3y ago
Our apartment uses one of these "services" for laundry. It requires you to be online to start the washer and my phone can't connect to my wifi from the laundry room. FAIL.
- mattl 3y ago
  But your phone can use non-wifi in the same spot, or is it a total deadzone?
- gnopgnip 3y ago
  We had the same problem but the HOA installed a cell phone repeater/extender on the roof. It was like $200, one time purchase, works great. Also the washers and dryers take quarters too but that can be a pain too
  - kxrm 3y ago
    If they are willing to go so far as to install repeaters, why not a credit card reader?
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      I wonder if whole thing is bought SaaS. So it is up to provider to get it to work.
      - matthews2 3y ago
        WaaS (Washing as a Service)
    - gnopgnip 3y ago
      They don't want to deal with credit card fraud and pci compliance when everyone can use the service on their phone or get quarters
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  There’s a lot of underground restaurants and bars in Sydney, and many of them have started using QR code only ordering. Only problem is phone reception is really spotty in a lot of the basement venues, and not all of them have wifi.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yeah the QR crap was understandable during the pandemic (though a bit stupid because surface spread was discredited very soon). But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it. It used to be impolite to mess with your phone in a restaurant. Now it's mandatory. Luckily it's not so common anymore now in Spain, only the Asian restaurants still do it. And McDonald's are trying to force their app by removing ever more ordering screens.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it. It's cheaper than having to deal with paper that gets dirty, torn apart by kids or outright stolen. And "daily special" doesn't need to be manually inserted into menus any more. I've mentioned it in another thread about ice cream machines already: restaurants and hospitality in general are absurd cheapskates. Whenever a tiny avenue opens that saves them money, they'll do it, legal or not - the only thing that matters is that it looks acceptable to customers.
      - georgebcrawford 3y ago
        > restaurants and hospitality in general are absurd cheapskates. You've never run a bar or restaurant have you. What do you think the profit margins are?
        mschuster91 3y ago
        I have never run a bar, but worked in stage lighting, as a bartender and as a cleaner. And no matter where I worked at, if you'd send in the health department, fire safety inspectors, plumbers, electrical inspectors or cybersecurity experts, you'd find a truckload of code violations, not to mention constant issues with getting paid.
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
When I moved in 8 years ago, our laundry service accepted coins or cards. There was a nice box on the wall where you swiped your card, and then you could activate up to four machines at a time, which was great, because I usually ran three loads at once. They also had a fantastic web-based machine monitor page, which was accessible by anyone from anywhere, with no auth required. Then they "upgraded" and every machine got a little bluetoothy card reader dongle on it and a QR code, and they "upgraded" the box on the wall so that it stopped accepting cards. So that's fine, I guess, but it was a pain in the ass to start 3 machines at once, because now I needed to run my card 3 separate times, and hope that the readers were all working OK. There was also a mobile app, but the Android Lollipop tablet I had never worked with the app. You needed to activate both WiFi and BT (and it would force those on) but it still didn't work, despite my valiant efforts to contact their Support idiots. They also shut down the good monitoring page, and the only way to monitor machines was to pay for a load and use the app only. That sucked. A major use case for monitoring was to see who was using machines already, before I lugged everything downstairs! So I got a new Android 10 phone and the app worked okay. I didn't really use the app. Then I noticed that the laundry room was really going downhill. Machines went out of order and weren't fixed. The same with pipes and such. Seeing the hand writing on the wall, I began to outsource to a wash'n'fold service, which has worked great. Then a few months ago, landlady announced that we were switching laundry services, so that was all swept away and new machines were installed. There is a new app. The little box on the wall now sells reloadable cards, too. And you can pick those up at the leasing office. I sort of used the app just to test it. Obviously, there's no world-readable monitoring page on the web. Thankfully, I think the machines are still accepting quarters. But I'm still going with my outsourced hassle-free laundry.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  The wave of the future: "washer women" for hire.
  - itronitron 3y ago
    I'm sensing a YC startup opportunity, assuming it isn't already taken.
nlunbeck 3y ago
> You can actually check out an iPod Touch, generously provided by Washlava and SidPac, to open the Washlava app and perform your laundry. Score! I love how this would totally feel hyperbolic as a comedy skit
totetsu 3y ago
Solving societies problems through technology
ThinkingGuy 3y ago
On a trip to California last year, my wife and I rented a house in which the washing machine required a mobile app to start. I don't have a cell phone. Fortunately my wife has an iPhone, so we were able to install the app on her phone, connect it to my credit card, and charge it with the minimum mount (about $15, as I recall). I'll never use that specific app again, so we deleted it, meaning the app company got to keep most of the money. Later we tried renting some e-scooters, which required the use of the Lyft App. My wife has the Lyft app, which let her pay for one scooter but then wouldn't let her unlock a second one for her non-cellphone-owning husband (I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck). I sense that in the not-too-distant future, those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Don't some states have laws that require businesses to accept cash?
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private") but you can't be compelled to provide a service for someone who is carrying cash only, unless something changed recently
    - happymellon 3y ago
      > you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private") Does it mean that? Just because it is legal tender doesn't mean you have to accept it.
      - brazzy 3y ago
        Yes, it does. That is the definition of "legal tender". Usually there are some restrictions on the amount and the denominations, so you don't have to accept a truck full of 1 cent coins.
downvotetruth 3y ago
Shared washers and dryers spread fungal infections like candidiasis.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Wouldn’t the heat and chemicals kill off most of these? Isn’t the point of washing clothes to get rid of this kind of stuff? I’m not sure I want the answer to these questions, maybe ignorance is bliss.
  - downvotetruth 3y ago
    The dryer heat should, but realize that the surface of the machines like the handles are separate.
    - op00to 3y ago
      wear gloves.
  - WanderPanda 3y ago
    > I’m not sure I want the answer to these questions, maybe ignorance is bliss. Same, already second-guessing my regular runs to the laundromat
  - op00to 3y ago
    If shared laundry were a significant vector of transmissible diseases, it would be pretty damn obvious. Can fungus grow in your washer? Sure. My washing machine growing up as a kid was gross and my clothes constantly stunk because of my family's inability to take wet laundry out of the washer. Then I went away to college, the machines were maintained, I'm not a moron and can handle getting clothes out of the washer when they're done, and my clothes no longer stunk. Wash your clothes with detergent (no, you don't even need hot water), dry them promptly, and you will be fine. Use a hot air dryer instead of line drying if you're really worried.
- toast0 3y ago
  What's the alternative? Dorm rooms aren't going to get individual laundry machines if they don't even have individual toilets. Most apartments aren't getting individual laundry equipment either. And you can't wash your clothes down at the river anymore.
saurik 3y ago
Just a few months ago, I was still able to get Lyft rides using a desktop browser; but, despite the web page still being very functional -- letting me select the endpoints, see nearby cars, and get pricing-timing information for the various options -- when I tried to do that this morning they made the button to do the actual booking process say something like "book using the app" and presented a dialog when I clicked it telling me they no longer supported booking from the website and I would have to use the app on a phone. I am pretty sure the web site even correctly tracked my ride after I booked... this one just feels particularly egregious to me as it clearly is almost fully still functional but they decided to explicitly not allow this use case anymore?
- kristopolous 3y ago
  That's so bull. I was a cto of a small ride sharing company where you could book through sms, a web page designed for flip phones, one for desktops, or a smart phone app - and this was in 2020. We had like 1/100th the budget of Lyft. It's inexcusable. An sms interface is super easy. You give it an address, then it reads it back to confirm it's right, gives you a list of price options and sends you updates... You can do the entire rideflow completely over sms assuming the person has already signed up. Even the tips, no problem. It feels more casual. We definitely got higher utilization after the SMS interface than before. The flip phone interface was actually great for people with old phones or on limited data plans, it too got a lot of use. This forcing of all the users through the same funnel is total bullshit. Wasn't personal computing supposed to be individuated instead of consolidated? Let's stop 1960s IBMing everything
  - smabie 3y ago
    How many customers does Lyft lose because you can't book through a computer? I would guess close to zero
    - kristopolous 3y ago
      That's not correct. It's how many profit dollars does it lose. Most customers are hybrid customers - they will use say, Amazon.com on a desktop and on their phone. The question is do you want to cater to customers where they're at as that flow changes throughout the day or do you want to force them to come to you? Obviously it's the first. You want to push your way into their behavior through ubiquity. You keep it up for the same reason you keep the Denny's open at 3am Christmas morning or you have those 7 Starbucks within a mile radius - there's an important ideological commitment that defines your relationship with the customer as a reliable and accessible partner in their lives. It pays dividends at the macro level even if on the micro level it doesn't seem reasonable. You're either de facto infrastructure or luxury. Make sure that decision is yours and not the consumers. As far as what happened to the company, we had some high risk bets in 2020Q1 and bet everything on it and yeah well, pandemic. Shit happens.
dano 3y ago
Here are some driving factors for this change: - tenants have asked for it because they never seem to have the right amount of change - banks are declining to accept unrolled coins - better accounting between owners and property managers
- ghaff 3y ago
  >- tenants have asked for it because they never seem to have the right amount of change I have a couple old change buckets that probably still have a fair number of quarters buried in them, but I don't get given coins in the US more than a few times a year. If I didn't have old change at home, I'd have to go to a bank.
- cogogo 3y ago
  It was a huge hassle to have enough quarters 20 yrs ago when I last used coin laundry. These days when many people don’t use cash at all it’s far harder to find them. During the peak of the pandemic restrictions in the US there was a massive shortage of quarters because of limited commerce. There are a lot of people where I live in the Boston area who depend on coin laundry who had a hard time getting any done. Personally I would have welcomed anything that freed me from rounding up quarters. Though would prefer tap to pay on the machine over an app.
  - _delirium 3y ago
    My apartment building’s laundry uses quarters and just has a change machine in the laundry room. It is almost a closed loop token system since people tend not to use the quarters for anything besides laundry. You stick a bill in the change machine to get quarters, put the quarters in a laundry machine, then every few days the staff empties the quarters from the laundry machines and uses them to refill the change machine.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      What is a typical cost? A laundry near me costs £4, which is $5. Feeding 20 coins into a machine is unappealing, so I can see why apps and so on might be more popular in the USA.
Tee3993 3y ago
During lockdowns my country required phone, to get permit to leave house. If I followed rules, I would not be able to buy food, and would starve to death!
- cglong 3y ago
  Can I ask which country?
  - Tee3993 3y ago
    Greece
    - beebeepka 3y ago
      Not shocking you have plenty of anarchists down south, neighbour. An app to request permission to leave your home. What were they thinking
- d-s 3y ago
  A phone or a smartphone with is from big 2?
  - Tee3993 3y ago
    Local number was required to receive SMS. Foreign numbers were not supported. I only had foreign data SIM.
- neom 3y ago
  A similar thing happened in Korea, to enter establishment there was a requirement to scan the business QR code then collect name and phone number on a government portal before entering, however the vast majority of people travel in Korea are assigned a sim with no number attached, so a lot of forigners just couldn't go out. To be fair, you couldn't enter the country for tourism at the time, but you could for business- so meetings at restaurants became a real challenge.
mongol 3y ago
I don't understand why everything needs to be an app. Why not a webpage? And always these user agreements that require approval..
- onion2k 3y ago
  The irony is that it probably is a webpage, displayed in a webview, in an app wrapper. Very few companies with these tiny apps built them as native apps.
  - kredd 3y ago
    A decent chance that it’s a React Native shop that’s pumping these apps. Worked with some subcontractors that did those.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Companies seem more keen on worming their way into your life and collecting information about you than making it easier to purchase their products.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I keep seeing this posted on HN. What information do you think they can collect in an app without your permission that they can’t collect over the web?
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Access to data on the phone for example. Just from top of my head: camera, stored data, contacts, location, microphone... I am firmly in the browser-over-app camp. One of the reasons I have close to zero third party apps on my phones.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        And none of that information is available unless you explicitly give the app permission. On the other hand using standardized APIs, a web page can access everything you mentioned except for contacts
ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
I understand the argument that you shouldn't need a smartphone for everyday tasks but you can get a perfectly serviceable one for $100-$200 and I feel like this shouldn't be a burden for a college student.
- rsolva 3y ago
  Price is not the only reason to not get a smartphone, not participating in surveilance captalism also plays a part for some. I have found a compromise with a de-googled phone, but I have considered switching to a dumb phone more than once.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Yes because paying with a credit card gives you lots of anonymity…
    - flangola7 3y ago
      Hello, cash? At least credit card isn't a continuous and multi-sensor surveillance device.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        And then they have to hire someone to go by and get cash from each of the machines.
        Mordisquitos 3y ago
        > And then they have to hire someone to go by and get cash from each of the machines. Are hiring costs really such a deciding factor? By relying on an app, they have to hire teams to develop and maintain at least two mobile apps, probably another team to develop and maintain the 'Laundry Pod' device, at least two teams to develop and maintain the laundry machine endpoints (hardware and software), teams to develop and maintain the backend services, technical support staff to offer first-level customer support for any IT issue, and (hopefully) a competent infosec team to keep their platform secure. And that's without taking into account the IT infrastructure expenditures. If they can afford all that, they can afford some low-wage cash-picker-uppers... but why would they even need them? They could simply provide the organisation that is renting out the laundry equipment with the keys to get the cash themselves. Washlava can invoice the renters for whatever flat or per-usage fee, with no need to even touch the cash.
rapnie 3y ago
Smart people call this "Digital Transformation", and they think it is good. After all, they earn their money with it.
vinay_ys 3y ago
I want a safari private browsing mode equivalent for apps on iPhone. I would turn this on by default for all apps. And I would use Apple ID generated per-app user-id and iCloud private relay and private email for every app by default. I'm hopeful that Apple will do it as they are a privacy focused company. Basically iPhone should behave like TorBrowser for every single app. I also want the location service to feed an address based location or a previously saved location to the app. And I want to deny any attempts to fingerprint via device ids and names like wifi access point names or bluetooth devices etc. Someone at apple, if you are reading this, please get it done. Thanks!
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Hmm, maybe like Firefox containers.
- cglong 3y ago
  Not quite the same, but Android has a Guest User mode (similar to macOS). If you switch to the Guest account, it'll create a new user separate from the main one. Then when you log out, it deletes all the data.
  - RGBCube 3y ago
    Can't wait until Apple does this and markets this as a revolutionary feature.
- throwitaway156 3y ago
  Damn, i knew that Apple did marketing well but not this well. Great success, apple marketing team.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  Almost all of this already exists: * Apps that offer any form of social login must also offer Apple ID login * Apple ID login can anonymise your email address per-provider * Every app already gets a distinct device ID, and indeed every app install gets one. Reinstalls regenerate it. * Wifi APs and Bluetooth scans require location privileges, which you can decline. * Apps are required to continue functioning (minus functions that clearly require the permission) if you decline them.
ta8645 3y ago
I wanted to ask OpenAI for an idea how to solve this social problem, but I can't sign up without a cell phone.
simonjgreen 3y ago
This feels like it could have been much better achieved through contactless payment than a proprietary app. Moving from coins makes sense, moving off standards less so.
- mrighele 3y ago
  Proprietary app makes more sense for them - you get the money in advance - you don’t pay commission to CC network for every transaction - casual users will give you much more money than what they need to
  - simonjgreen 3y ago
    I'm extremely confident their top up mechanism will incur fees just as much as contactless payment would. And clearance is soon enough. Unclaimed balances would not show on their P&L if they are following GAPP, in fact they'd be a liability. And it's at a school?! Priorities:D
- acters 3y ago
  If they had contact less, then they wouldn't be able to gather the data from their mobile device...
theonething 3y ago
some good writing there.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cseleborg 3y ago
I recently landed on beeline's website (GPS navigation devices for motorbikes and bicycles). For bicycles, the tagline was "Simplify your ride". I strongly disagree. I feel like involving my smartphone into any activity that existed in 1990 (like jogging, or riding a bike) tends to make things more complicated, not less. When I go for a jog wanting to listen to podcasts, battery status, headphones, Bluetooth and playlist ordering are additional complexities that, at the very minimum, add additional steps to the process and, at worst, require several minutes of problem-solving before I can get started. In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- onion2k 3y ago
  In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler. Beeline is an alternative to a paper map, and having seen many people try to navigate with a map I'm pretty sure everyone would agree than a smart phone is massively less complicated. If you're going on a journey where you wouldn't need a map, just adding in some tech is obviously going to be more complicated than not adding tech.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  You think this because the cases where smartphones are worse stand out more. Finding businesses that match some profile in the area, finding out that business' hours and offerings, then getting directions there from wherever you currently are -- all MASSIVELY easier on a smartphone compared to doing the same in 1990/pre-web. Doing that stuff with yellow pages and a map was a huge pain in the ass that took forever. Grabbing a playlist to listen to music on a jog is also way easier in the age of music subscriptions and smartphones, compared to going around with a walkman+tape, especially if you factor in getting variety in song choice. Also, remember communicating with people at arbitrary times? If they're at home, that's fairly safe, though if you're not home you may need to find a payphone. But if they're away from home on errands, lol, good fucking luck getting a message to them.
scarface_74 3y ago
So instead of using a phone, he used an iPod Touch which is basically an iPhone without a cellular chip?
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  A loaned iPod, which is to say, one that isn't leaking personal data.
syats 3y ago
Somewhere in HN there's a post about disrupting or revolutionizing the laundromat industry, where some person is showered in praise (and later money) for setting up this lousy system. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
- WeAddValue 3y ago
  Long time ago I lived in a shady building where it was broke, broken into that is to get the coins in the machine.
  - usr1106 3y ago
    And now the LavaWash server could be hacked to steal user data that a washing machine would never need, but the implementer chose to store without reasonable protection.
Cupprum 3y ago
Really nice article i really enjoy the way you write.
Lammy 3y ago
Sounds like it really is trying to be "Uber for Laundry" (i.e. expensive and spies on you) https://www.washlava.com/facility-owners https://www.washlava.com/facility-owners https://www.washlava.com/route-operators https://www.washlava.com/route-operators > Real Time Data > Demand Based Pricing > Real-time performance analytics > Optimize price per load > Shareable data & reporting
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
How is any of this preferable to just shoving some quarters into a slot? Not everything needs to be a fucking app.
helmette 3y ago
Is it unrealistic to hope for legal protection against being refused services on account of lacking a phone? Has that been suggested anywhere?
- paxys 3y ago
  Unless you are entitled to that service by law, probably.
- MandieD 3y ago
  This is something that AARP should be on. Yes, I know that most seniors, even very old ones (over 80) have smartphones, but an awful lot do not, and many who do have a rather uneasy relationship with it. Every update comes with user interface changes that have to be learned, and I see my older relatives who do have smartphones having various levels of trouble learning them each time. Eventually, they give up on functions that change too much (Apple, I’m talking about Camera and Photos on the iPhone) Despite personally liking my iPhone, I’m looking to help protect the rights of my relatives to live their lives and access public services without smartphones or personal internet access.
  - helmette 3y ago
    There are seniors; there are also those who simply will not carry a device that constantly broadcasts their position and contains microphones and cameras that are ultimately controlled by some company.
alcover 3y ago
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31294316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31294316 ...about being locked out of your appartment when your phone is discharged.
codeulike 3y ago
Thirty years ago I would have given anything for a pocket device that could tell me whether any washing machines on campus were empty and ready to use. Because it sucked to lug my basket of socks and sweaty t-shirts over to laundry block only to find out there was a big queue and my options were either to lug the basket back to my room and try again a random interval later, or leave my backet lying around in the laundry block, at the mercy of who knows what and come back a random interval later.
- brightstep 3y ago
  Would you still have, if you knew the strings that would come attached? Tracking your every move? Enabling governments to surreptitiously snoop on your audio and camera? Constant exposure to experiences designed to addict and immiserate you?
  - Spivak 3y ago
    The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes. Also no one snoops on your audio or camera despite the paranoia around it, there's no need to. You can get all the info you need much more efficiently and accurately other ways.
    - Jenda_ 3y ago
      > The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes. Maybe they have no other real choice? This discussion is full of such cases.
  - Jenda_ 3y ago
    So, maybe, the washing machine could have a... web page? No proprietary app store (where the app disappears when not updated to support the new OS version), no installation, usable from any device?
  - codeulike 3y ago
    I think it's good that people are aware of the downsides to everyone-has-a-smartphone and I'm glad there are people like Snowden who have made us all very aware of that. And I think it's good people are trying to find ways to avoid the downsides. But I also think it's easy to take all the incredible benefits for-granted and only see the downsides. I remember what it was like 30 years ago and I much prefer now. Do you remember having to go to a physical location (library or town hall) to look things up? Basically no-one bothered and we all blundered around believing whatever some bloke in the pub had told us about. We all have the world in our pocket now and it's amazing. (Yes we have the problem of bubbles and misinformation but I still think information abundance wins out over information drought)
personjerry 3y ago
Fine, an app for laundry is overkill but man is the particular conclusion dumb. Imagine I said "I tried opening a door without a key!! Is technology making our lives better after all? Metallurgy is unnecessary!!"
- thsksbd 3y ago
  A key is $0.50, is dumb, cannot spy on you and is indestructible.. A phone is >1000x that and comes with distraction, surveillance, and is easy ti brake.
- msdrigg 3y ago
  This is the right takeaway honestly. I was hoping a comment like this would be the top comment, but unfortunately hackernews loves this kind of bait
shrtctroulette 3y ago
sidenote: so happy with the dead simple template of this blog
einpoklum 3y ago
tl;dr: He got a smartphone substitute from some desk, which works with the washing machines. After a bit of trouble working that, he managed to access his account and wash.
mihaaly 3y ago
> I tried doing my laundry without a smartphone. This proved to be difficult, since our laundry machines can only be operated with a smartphone app. After lots of struggle, I finally managed to do it, leading me to reflect on whether technology is actually making our lives better. On the current maniacally forced through and intentionally neglectful way (arbitrarily picking the superiority of a narrow concept over all else) it is not. Not at all. In the past 10-15 years the usability of technology is degrading. Got only overcomplicated, unnecessarily overwhelming (using it in places unnecessary or harmful), not better in making life easier. Just relocating the difficulty and complexity somewhere else, to some previously unkown domain. Be it gadgets, operating systems, home appliences, vechicles. Things went wrong somewhere by some reason. (rampage of clueless investment money? huge technical organizations serving only themselves? ...)
- ryukoposting 3y ago
  Be careful, pointless smartphone-ifying of everything is what keeps half this site employed.
  - mihaaly 3y ago
    Right! : ) : (
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thegreatwhale8 3y ago
Sorry, but this story reads like an AI generated text and the subject matter is ridiculous. The person in the text is narrow minded, selfish etc. There are a multitude of reasons public/commercial laundry would want to have an app. If one wants to have it tailored to their old-fashioned ways they have to own their own laundry machine.
- brightstep 3y ago
  It’s not always possible to have a personal laundry machine available. Is it too much to ask that the machines also accept a credit card scanned in-person?
khiqxj 3y ago
1. stop putting software in things 2. especially dont put webshit in things 3. especially dont put smartphone shit in things really, i'm not trying to sound rude, theres no other way to put it, you deserve it. its unfortunate that people value "politeness" over reason. this is the hard truth that people in this bubble have not been able to face for 20 years now. the web is an abomination which was never created for anything other than corporate interests and serving magazines. of course it's practically inoperable. same exact story for smartphones, it was created by some scum web company to carry out the old trope of making a software ecosystem where shitty devs that cant make their own software come to and said scummy company gets to rule over. none of this implies any good or even reasonably working software also laundry is a trivial task, it was only hard before washing machines. also this is one example of where technology actually made our lives better but all kinds of idiots like environmentalists and corpos are trying to ruin it.
truculent 3y ago
Did this article trip anyone else’s “is this GPT?” senses? I thought the prose style was very strange - quite verbose with a lot of redundant descriptors.
- shijie 3y ago
  It tripped my “trying to hard to write eloquent, witty prose” senses. I proofread a lot of papers in college and wrote a lot of columns in the school newspaper. This is a common style. Thesaurus-driven word choice.
  - Pannoniae 3y ago
    Basically the "if I use fancy words, I sound smart to those who don't actually comprehend the words' meanings"
    - maksimur 3y ago
      I don't know if it's the guy's case, however, there are people who actually delight themselves in writing complex sentences comparable to a mathematician's delight in doing mathematics or a painter's artistry on canvas. I'm noticing it's mainly an US-centric trend to have negative feelings towards good and complex writing.
      - gcr 3y ago
        i used to do exactly this as an undergrad! i thought it made my writing sound whimsical or whatever, as if emulating the style of Lemony Snickett or _why the lucky stiff i've since replaced this (bad imho) habit with other bad habits, fortunately
        maksimur 3y ago
        It goes without saying you shouldn't imitate the style of other people but have your own. Also, there's actually a feeling of joy in writing good prose and seeing the result, which is something I never mastered in English, as evidenced for example by my repeated use of "but", but (yeah..) kind of did in my native language.
karaterobot 3y ago
One significant problem with making your hardware dependent on an app is that if you are a washing machine company, you probably don't make mobile apps. So, you hire a contractor. They design an app without any expertise in the product or the domain, and program it on the cheap. It is trash. Later, the contractor goes out of business and you give the code to another contractor. They notice that the code is garbage, and not even garbage that somebody there made. Feature work is impossible, the app languishes. 1.5 stars in the app store. Every time there's an iOS update, people can't do their laundry for a couple weeks, until the one programmer working half time on the app can push an update. Later, you (the washing machine company) decide to sunset that product line, which means there's no updates to the app. iOS changes, the app stops working altogether, everybody has to buy a new washing machine. I've been that contractor, which is why I will never be the owner of an appliance that requires an app to function.
- layer8 3y ago
  Part of this modern sickness is having an OS that requires regular updates of the apps that run on it.
  - snicker7 3y ago
    It’s more than that. The app likely has some backend dependencies that require some ongoing maintenance or cost. It’s not just that your washing machine depends on an iOS app, but on some DynamoDB table somewhere.
  - Tyr42 3y ago
    If we only had a Windows phone...
    - shortrounddev2 3y ago
      My Nokia lumia was easily the best phone I ever owned
      - tobinfekkes 3y ago
linker3000 3y ago
My son had a near-identical experience at Uni in the UK, except for 'pod' substitute smartcard. For some reason, the laundry app would not run without crashing on his phone. The Uni could provide a loadable smartcard for the machines - but they had run out. The machines did not work with regular credit/debit cards or NFC phones. Result: For several weeks, son has to haul laundry on the bus to an off-campus launderette.
paganel 3y ago
Try parking in the majority of European cities without a (smart) phone, it has become close to impossible.
fortran77 3y ago
If in the United States, the thing to do is call an attorney and file an ADA lawsuit against the school. Find a disability that makes it difficult to use a smartphone and claim you have it. For example "Internet Addication" or "ADHD"
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
Decided to limit smartphone usage... by running whatsapp on a computer. Kids these days.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  "Decided to limit realtime notification distractions and the constant temptation to glance at my ultraportable computer by... Installing a communication program widely used by friends on my bulkier computer that I only check periodically." Yes, it does make sense.
hnburnsy 3y ago
One could use an Android emulator without needing a smartphone.
vegetablepotpie 3y ago
This reminds me of my experience of getting the battery replaced for my iPhone. The authorized repair technician at Best Buy made me turn off “find my iPhone” before servicing the device. Turns out, somehow, I had two Apple accounts, one with a user name that is tied to my email address, and the other one where my user name is my email address. To my surprise Apple considers these to be distinct accounts. While I remember the password for my user name, and I assumed it was the same for the account that used my email address as the user name, turns out it was not and I could not turn off find my iPhone. Attempts to use my phone to reset my password lead to the settings app freezing up and giving me a gave a generic “could not connect to network” error message. Switching from cellular to WiFi did not help the situation. The technician was about to say that they would not be able to replace the battery for the day. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me that day for unrelated reasons and after returning to the store with it I was able to reset my password with the web interface. Modern technology has introduced a large number of seldom used use cases that are not well handled, but are essential when needed. Had I not had all the devices with me in my digital arsenal, I would not have been able to get my battery replaced. I have to wonder how many people face this issue and end up buying a new device to avoid the hassle.
- NoNoisle 3y ago
  This doesn’t sound right. You should be able to reset the password or at least start the process using the Apple support app or the website on the iPhone itself…setting is not the only way.
  - vegetablepotpie 3y ago
    I omitted the step where the technician had me install the Apple support app as an alternative pathway to a password reset, but that had the same issue where a network connection could not be found regardless of being on WiFi or cellular.
- lazyant 3y ago
  Not only BestBuy; at the Apple store for an iPhone repair, they made me turn off "find my iPhone" and reset my password, so I guess it's SOP.
wheelerof4te 3y ago
Why WhatsApp for calls and texts? Why not use a simple dumb phone? In fact, the OP mentions that he has a Razr flip phone, but uses it without a SIM card?! And whoever thinks that using an app for controlling the washing machine is smart...isn't very smart.
- beecafe 3y ago
  [dead]
greenie_beans 3y ago
add me to the list of people without a smartphone who has to deal with bullshit like this.
sanjitb 3y ago
Speaking of the evils of internet-reliant devices and bad engineering: those MIT washing machines actually went down for two weeks. MIT changed the authentication configuration of their wireless network, the software couldn't re-connect, and all hell broke loose. They had to turn on some emergency operating mode that allowed students to use them for free, without any app.
- bick_nyers 3y ago
  Good, I mean why charge in the first place? So much other infrastructure gets rolled into tuition anyways.
oblak 3y ago
Just today I went into a Xiaomi only store, branded as Mi store something. After spending a few minutes looking around, I finally asked the guy if there's ANY product that works without an app. Surprisingly, there was - an electric shaving device (razors?). I couldn't stop laughing. Even things as simple of cheap pole/standing fan require apps.
ltr_ 3y ago
this has nothing to do with bad engineering, it's about stupid greedy investors/managers with to much power on decision making, decisions that they should not make. this is sad and an embarrassment to tech people. this industry is a joke.
rolph 3y ago
https://blacksprucehound.com/2011/09/26/how-to-wash-laundry-with-plunger/ https://blacksprucehound.com/2011/09/26/how-to-wash-laundry-... [2011]
bdavbdav 3y ago
I think the writer hit the nail on the head when they said they were the first one to ask for the iPod.
kotaKat 3y ago
I feel like it'd be easier to rally your student body to get rid of the stupid payment systems altogether and do what some other schools do: $free.99 laundry, paid for by a per-semester lump-sum "laundry fee". The washers and dryers are standard fare - still commercial units, just set to $0. It's so much nicer to be able to card into the laundry room, throw your clothes in, hit start, and leave without having to fumble with Enshittification.
ProllyInfamous 3y ago
>"I got a Yubikey which obviates the need for SMS-based 2FA." Details?! I do not carry a cell phone and this would be incredibly convenient. Modern systems don't seem to even try working with my numeric pager.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  They are good for logging in from a laptop. Never seen them on location. Get two of the cheaper ones to start with. Keep one as backup in a safe place.
Aerbil313 3y ago
Everyone should read Ted Kaczynski.

340 points by barbarr 3y ago

Our apartment uses one of these "services" for laundry. It requires you to be online to start the washer and my phone can't connect to my wifi from the laundry room. FAIL.

mattl 3y ago
But your phone can use non-wifi in the same spot, or is it a total deadzone?
gnopgnip 3y ago
We had the same problem but the HOA installed a cell phone repeater/extender on the roof. It was like $200, one time purchase, works great. Also the washers and dryers take quarters too but that can be a pain too
- kxrm 3y ago
  If they are willing to go so far as to install repeaters, why not a credit card reader?
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    I wonder if whole thing is bought SaaS. So it is up to provider to get it to work.
    - matthews2 3y ago
      WaaS (Washing as a Service)
  - gnopgnip 3y ago
    They don't want to deal with credit card fraud and pci compliance when everyone can use the service on their phone or get quarters
AmericanChopper 3y ago
There’s a lot of underground restaurants and bars in Sydney, and many of them have started using QR code only ordering. Only problem is phone reception is really spotty in a lot of the basement venues, and not all of them have wifi.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yeah the QR crap was understandable during the pandemic (though a bit stupid because surface spread was discredited very soon). But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it. It used to be impolite to mess with your phone in a restaurant. Now it's mandatory. Luckily it's not so common anymore now in Spain, only the Asian restaurants still do it. And McDonald's are trying to force their app by removing ever more ordering screens.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > But I don't understand why so many restaurants still hang on to it. It's cheaper than having to deal with paper that gets dirty, torn apart by kids or outright stolen. And "daily special" doesn't need to be manually inserted into menus any more. I've mentioned it in another thread about ice cream machines already: restaurants and hospitality in general are absurd cheapskates. Whenever a tiny avenue opens that saves them money, they'll do it, legal or not - the only thing that matters is that it looks acceptable to customers.
    - georgebcrawford 3y ago
      > restaurants and hospitality in general are absurd cheapskates. You've never run a bar or restaurant have you. What do you think the profit margins are?
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        I have never run a bar, but worked in stage lighting, as a bartender and as a cleaner. And no matter where I worked at, if you'd send in the health department, fire safety inspectors, plumbers, electrical inspectors or cybersecurity experts, you'd find a truckload of code violations, not to mention constant issues with getting paid.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

When I moved in 8 years ago, our laundry service accepted coins or cards. There was a nice box on the wall where you swiped your card, and then you could activate up to four machines at a time, which was great, because I usually ran three loads at once. They also had a fantastic web-based machine monitor page, which was accessible by anyone from anywhere, with no auth required. Then they "upgraded" and every machine got a little bluetoothy card reader dongle on it and a QR code, and they "upgraded" the box on the wall so that it stopped accepting cards. So that's fine, I guess, but it was a pain in the ass to start 3 machines at once, because now I needed to run my card 3 separate times, and hope that the readers were all working OK. There was also a mobile app, but the Android Lollipop tablet I had never worked with the app. You needed to activate both WiFi and BT (and it would force those on) but it still didn't work, despite my valiant efforts to contact their Support idiots. They also shut down the good monitoring page, and the only way to monitor machines was to pay for a load and use the app only. That sucked. A major use case for monitoring was to see who was using machines already, before I lugged everything downstairs! So I got a new Android 10 phone and the app worked okay. I didn't really use the app. Then I noticed that the laundry room was really going downhill. Machines went out of order and weren't fixed. The same with pipes and such. Seeing the hand writing on the wall, I began to outsource to a wash'n'fold service, which has worked great. Then a few months ago, landlady announced that we were switching laundry services, so that was all swept away and new machines were installed. There is a new app. The little box on the wall now sells reloadable cards, too. And you can pick those up at the leasing office. I sort of used the app just to test it. Obviously, there's no world-readable monitoring page on the web. Thankfully, I think the machines are still accepting quarters. But I'm still going with my outsourced hassle-free laundry.

DoreenMichele 3y ago
The wave of the future: "washer women" for hire.
- itronitron 3y ago
  I'm sensing a YC startup opportunity, assuming it isn't already taken.

nlunbeck 3y ago

> You can actually check out an iPod Touch, generously provided by Washlava and SidPac, to open the Washlava app and perform your laundry. Score! I love how this would totally feel hyperbolic as a comedy skit

totetsu 3y ago

Solving societies problems through technology

ThinkingGuy 3y ago

On a trip to California last year, my wife and I rented a house in which the washing machine required a mobile app to start. I don't have a cell phone. Fortunately my wife has an iPhone, so we were able to install the app on her phone, connect it to my credit card, and charge it with the minimum mount (about $15, as I recall). I'll never use that specific app again, so we deleted it, meaning the app company got to keep most of the money. Later we tried renting some e-scooters, which required the use of the Lyft App. My wife has the Lyft app, which let her pay for one scooter but then wouldn't let her unlock a second one for her non-cellphone-owning husband (I guess if you're a parent who wants to use e-scooters with your child, you're out of luck). I sense that in the not-too-distant future, those of us who don't own a device running either Apple's or Google's proprietary OS will be pretty much excluded from many of the basic conveniences of everyday life.

userbinator 3y ago
Don't some states have laws that require businesses to accept cash?
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private") but you can't be compelled to provide a service for someone who is carrying cash only, unless something changed recently
  - happymellon 3y ago
    > you're required to accept cash as a payment for a debt (at least that's what is says on the bill, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private") Does it mean that? Just because it is legal tender doesn't mean you have to accept it.
    - brazzy 3y ago
      Yes, it does. That is the definition of "legal tender". Usually there are some restrictions on the amount and the denominations, so you don't have to accept a truck full of 1 cent coins.

downvotetruth 3y ago

Shared washers and dryers spread fungal infections like candidiasis.

brutusborn 3y ago
Wouldn’t the heat and chemicals kill off most of these? Isn’t the point of washing clothes to get rid of this kind of stuff? I’m not sure I want the answer to these questions, maybe ignorance is bliss.
- downvotetruth 3y ago
  The dryer heat should, but realize that the surface of the machines like the handles are separate.
  - op00to 3y ago
    wear gloves.
- WanderPanda 3y ago
  > I’m not sure I want the answer to these questions, maybe ignorance is bliss. Same, already second-guessing my regular runs to the laundromat
- op00to 3y ago
  If shared laundry were a significant vector of transmissible diseases, it would be pretty damn obvious. Can fungus grow in your washer? Sure. My washing machine growing up as a kid was gross and my clothes constantly stunk because of my family's inability to take wet laundry out of the washer. Then I went away to college, the machines were maintained, I'm not a moron and can handle getting clothes out of the washer when they're done, and my clothes no longer stunk. Wash your clothes with detergent (no, you don't even need hot water), dry them promptly, and you will be fine. Use a hot air dryer instead of line drying if you're really worried.
toast0 3y ago
What's the alternative? Dorm rooms aren't going to get individual laundry machines if they don't even have individual toilets. Most apartments aren't getting individual laundry equipment either. And you can't wash your clothes down at the river anymore.

saurik 3y ago

Just a few months ago, I was still able to get Lyft rides using a desktop browser; but, despite the web page still being very functional -- letting me select the endpoints, see nearby cars, and get pricing-timing information for the various options -- when I tried to do that this morning they made the button to do the actual booking process say something like "book using the app" and presented a dialog when I clicked it telling me they no longer supported booking from the website and I would have to use the app on a phone. I am pretty sure the web site even correctly tracked my ride after I booked... this one just feels particularly egregious to me as it clearly is almost fully still functional but they decided to explicitly not allow this use case anymore?

kristopolous 3y ago
That's so bull. I was a cto of a small ride sharing company where you could book through sms, a web page designed for flip phones, one for desktops, or a smart phone app - and this was in 2020. We had like 1/100th the budget of Lyft. It's inexcusable. An sms interface is super easy. You give it an address, then it reads it back to confirm it's right, gives you a list of price options and sends you updates... You can do the entire rideflow completely over sms assuming the person has already signed up. Even the tips, no problem. It feels more casual. We definitely got higher utilization after the SMS interface than before. The flip phone interface was actually great for people with old phones or on limited data plans, it too got a lot of use. This forcing of all the users through the same funnel is total bullshit. Wasn't personal computing supposed to be individuated instead of consolidated? Let's stop 1960s IBMing everything
- smabie 3y ago
  How many customers does Lyft lose because you can't book through a computer? I would guess close to zero
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    That's not correct. It's how many profit dollars does it lose. Most customers are hybrid customers - they will use say, Amazon.com on a desktop and on their phone. The question is do you want to cater to customers where they're at as that flow changes throughout the day or do you want to force them to come to you? Obviously it's the first. You want to push your way into their behavior through ubiquity. You keep it up for the same reason you keep the Denny's open at 3am Christmas morning or you have those 7 Starbucks within a mile radius - there's an important ideological commitment that defines your relationship with the customer as a reliable and accessible partner in their lives. It pays dividends at the macro level even if on the micro level it doesn't seem reasonable. You're either de facto infrastructure or luxury. Make sure that decision is yours and not the consumers. As far as what happened to the company, we had some high risk bets in 2020Q1 and bet everything on it and yeah well, pandemic. Shit happens.

dano 3y ago

Here are some driving factors for this change: - tenants have asked for it because they never seem to have the right amount of change - banks are declining to accept unrolled coins - better accounting between owners and property managers

ghaff 3y ago
>- tenants have asked for it because they never seem to have the right amount of change I have a couple old change buckets that probably still have a fair number of quarters buried in them, but I don't get given coins in the US more than a few times a year. If I didn't have old change at home, I'd have to go to a bank.
cogogo 3y ago
It was a huge hassle to have enough quarters 20 yrs ago when I last used coin laundry. These days when many people don’t use cash at all it’s far harder to find them. During the peak of the pandemic restrictions in the US there was a massive shortage of quarters because of limited commerce. There are a lot of people where I live in the Boston area who depend on coin laundry who had a hard time getting any done. Personally I would have welcomed anything that freed me from rounding up quarters. Though would prefer tap to pay on the machine over an app.
- _delirium 3y ago
  My apartment building’s laundry uses quarters and just has a change machine in the laundry room. It is almost a closed loop token system since people tend not to use the quarters for anything besides laundry. You stick a bill in the change machine to get quarters, put the quarters in a laundry machine, then every few days the staff empties the quarters from the laundry machines and uses them to refill the change machine.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    What is a typical cost? A laundry near me costs £4, which is $5. Feeding 20 coins into a machine is unappealing, so I can see why apps and so on might be more popular in the USA.

Tee3993 3y ago

During lockdowns my country required phone, to get permit to leave house. If I followed rules, I would not be able to buy food, and would starve to death!

cglong 3y ago
Can I ask which country?
- Tee3993 3y ago
  Greece
  - beebeepka 3y ago
    Not shocking you have plenty of anarchists down south, neighbour. An app to request permission to leave your home. What were they thinking
d-s 3y ago
A phone or a smartphone with is from big 2?
- Tee3993 3y ago
  Local number was required to receive SMS. Foreign numbers were not supported. I only had foreign data SIM.
neom 3y ago
A similar thing happened in Korea, to enter establishment there was a requirement to scan the business QR code then collect name and phone number on a government portal before entering, however the vast majority of people travel in Korea are assigned a sim with no number attached, so a lot of forigners just couldn't go out. To be fair, you couldn't enter the country for tourism at the time, but you could for business- so meetings at restaurants became a real challenge.

mongol 3y ago

I don't understand why everything needs to be an app. Why not a webpage? And always these user agreements that require approval..

onion2k 3y ago
The irony is that it probably is a webpage, displayed in a webview, in an app wrapper. Very few companies with these tiny apps built them as native apps.
- kredd 3y ago
  A decent chance that it’s a React Native shop that’s pumping these apps. Worked with some subcontractors that did those.
userbinator 3y ago
Companies seem more keen on worming their way into your life and collecting information about you than making it easier to purchase their products.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I keep seeing this posted on HN. What information do you think they can collect in an app without your permission that they can’t collect over the web?
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Access to data on the phone for example. Just from top of my head: camera, stored data, contacts, location, microphone... I am firmly in the browser-over-app camp. One of the reasons I have close to zero third party apps on my phones.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      And none of that information is available unless you explicitly give the app permission. On the other hand using standardized APIs, a web page can access everything you mentioned except for contacts

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago

I understand the argument that you shouldn't need a smartphone for everyday tasks but you can get a perfectly serviceable one for $100-$200 and I feel like this shouldn't be a burden for a college student.

rsolva 3y ago
Price is not the only reason to not get a smartphone, not participating in surveilance captalism also plays a part for some. I have found a compromise with a de-googled phone, but I have considered switching to a dumb phone more than once.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Yes because paying with a credit card gives you lots of anonymity…
  - flangola7 3y ago
    Hello, cash? At least credit card isn't a continuous and multi-sensor surveillance device.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      And then they have to hire someone to go by and get cash from each of the machines.
      - Mordisquitos 3y ago
        > And then they have to hire someone to go by and get cash from each of the machines. Are hiring costs really such a deciding factor? By relying on an app, they have to hire teams to develop and maintain at least two mobile apps, probably another team to develop and maintain the 'Laundry Pod' device, at least two teams to develop and maintain the laundry machine endpoints (hardware and software), teams to develop and maintain the backend services, technical support staff to offer first-level customer support for any IT issue, and (hopefully) a competent infosec team to keep their platform secure. And that's without taking into account the IT infrastructure expenditures. If they can afford all that, they can afford some low-wage cash-picker-uppers... but why would they even need them? They could simply provide the organisation that is renting out the laundry equipment with the keys to get the cash themselves. Washlava can invoice the renters for whatever flat or per-usage fee, with no need to even touch the cash.

rapnie 3y ago

Smart people call this "Digital Transformation", and they think it is good. After all, they earn their money with it.

vinay_ys 3y ago

I want a safari private browsing mode equivalent for apps on iPhone. I would turn this on by default for all apps. And I would use Apple ID generated per-app user-id and iCloud private relay and private email for every app by default. I'm hopeful that Apple will do it as they are a privacy focused company. Basically iPhone should behave like TorBrowser for every single app. I also want the location service to feed an address based location or a previously saved location to the app. And I want to deny any attempts to fingerprint via device ids and names like wifi access point names or bluetooth devices etc. Someone at apple, if you are reading this, please get it done. Thanks!

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Hmm, maybe like Firefox containers.
cglong 3y ago
Not quite the same, but Android has a Guest User mode (similar to macOS). If you switch to the Guest account, it'll create a new user separate from the main one. Then when you log out, it deletes all the data.
- RGBCube 3y ago
  Can't wait until Apple does this and markets this as a revolutionary feature.
throwitaway156 3y ago
Damn, i knew that Apple did marketing well but not this well. Great success, apple marketing team.
jon-wood 3y ago
Almost all of this already exists: * Apps that offer any form of social login must also offer Apple ID login * Apple ID login can anonymise your email address per-provider * Every app already gets a distinct device ID, and indeed every app install gets one. Reinstalls regenerate it. * Wifi APs and Bluetooth scans require location privileges, which you can decline. * Apps are required to continue functioning (minus functions that clearly require the permission) if you decline them.

ta8645 3y ago

I wanted to ask OpenAI for an idea how to solve this social problem, but I can't sign up without a cell phone.

simonjgreen 3y ago

This feels like it could have been much better achieved through contactless payment than a proprietary app. Moving from coins makes sense, moving off standards less so.

mrighele 3y ago
Proprietary app makes more sense for them - you get the money in advance - you don’t pay commission to CC network for every transaction - casual users will give you much more money than what they need to
- simonjgreen 3y ago
  I'm extremely confident their top up mechanism will incur fees just as much as contactless payment would. And clearance is soon enough. Unclaimed balances would not show on their P&L if they are following GAPP, in fact they'd be a liability. And it's at a school?! Priorities:D
acters 3y ago
If they had contact less, then they wouldn't be able to gather the data from their mobile device...

theonething 3y ago

some good writing there.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cseleborg 3y ago

I recently landed on beeline's website (GPS navigation devices for motorbikes and bicycles). For bicycles, the tagline was "Simplify your ride". I strongly disagree. I feel like involving my smartphone into any activity that existed in 1990 (like jogging, or riding a bike) tends to make things more complicated, not less. When I go for a jog wanting to listen to podcasts, battery status, headphones, Bluetooth and playlist ordering are additional complexities that, at the very minimum, add additional steps to the process and, at worst, require several minutes of problem-solving before I can get started. In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
onion2k 3y ago
In my experience, involving a smartphone can, but rarely does, make things simpler. Beeline is an alternative to a paper map, and having seen many people try to navigate with a map I'm pretty sure everyone would agree than a smart phone is massively less complicated. If you're going on a journey where you wouldn't need a map, just adding in some tech is obviously going to be more complicated than not adding tech.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
You think this because the cases where smartphones are worse stand out more. Finding businesses that match some profile in the area, finding out that business' hours and offerings, then getting directions there from wherever you currently are -- all MASSIVELY easier on a smartphone compared to doing the same in 1990/pre-web. Doing that stuff with yellow pages and a map was a huge pain in the ass that took forever. Grabbing a playlist to listen to music on a jog is also way easier in the age of music subscriptions and smartphones, compared to going around with a walkman+tape, especially if you factor in getting variety in song choice. Also, remember communicating with people at arbitrary times? If they're at home, that's fairly safe, though if you're not home you may need to find a payphone. But if they're away from home on errands, lol, good fucking luck getting a message to them.

scarface_74 3y ago

So instead of using a phone, he used an iPod Touch which is basically an iPhone without a cellular chip?

dredmorbius 3y ago
A loaned iPod, which is to say, one that isn't leaking personal data.

syats 3y ago

Somewhere in HN there's a post about disrupting or revolutionizing the laundromat industry, where some person is showered in praise (and later money) for setting up this lousy system. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

WeAddValue 3y ago
Long time ago I lived in a shady building where it was broke, broken into that is to get the coins in the machine.
- usr1106 3y ago
  And now the LavaWash server could be hacked to steal user data that a washing machine would never need, but the implementer chose to store without reasonable protection.

Cupprum 3y ago

Really nice article i really enjoy the way you write.

Lammy 3y ago

Sounds like it really is trying to be "Uber for Laundry" (i.e. expensive and spies on you) https://www.washlava.com/facility-owners https://www.washlava.com/facility-owners https://www.washlava.com/route-operators https://www.washlava.com/route-operators > Real Time Data > Demand Based Pricing > Real-time performance analytics > Optimize price per load > Shareable data & reporting

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

How is any of this preferable to just shoving some quarters into a slot? Not everything needs to be a fucking app.

helmette 3y ago

Is it unrealistic to hope for legal protection against being refused services on account of lacking a phone? Has that been suggested anywhere?

paxys 3y ago
Unless you are entitled to that service by law, probably.
MandieD 3y ago
This is something that AARP should be on. Yes, I know that most seniors, even very old ones (over 80) have smartphones, but an awful lot do not, and many who do have a rather uneasy relationship with it. Every update comes with user interface changes that have to be learned, and I see my older relatives who do have smartphones having various levels of trouble learning them each time. Eventually, they give up on functions that change too much (Apple, I’m talking about Camera and Photos on the iPhone) Despite personally liking my iPhone, I’m looking to help protect the rights of my relatives to live their lives and access public services without smartphones or personal internet access.
- helmette 3y ago
  There are seniors; there are also those who simply will not carry a device that constantly broadcasts their position and contains microphones and cameras that are ultimately controlled by some company.

alcover 3y ago

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31294316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31294316 ...about being locked out of your appartment when your phone is discharged.

codeulike 3y ago

Thirty years ago I would have given anything for a pocket device that could tell me whether any washing machines on campus were empty and ready to use. Because it sucked to lug my basket of socks and sweaty t-shirts over to laundry block only to find out there was a big queue and my options were either to lug the basket back to my room and try again a random interval later, or leave my backet lying around in the laundry block, at the mercy of who knows what and come back a random interval later.

brightstep 3y ago
Would you still have, if you knew the strings that would come attached? Tracking your every move? Enabling governments to surreptitiously snoop on your audio and camera? Constant exposure to experiences designed to addict and immiserate you?
- Spivak 3y ago
  The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes. Also no one snoops on your audio or camera despite the paranoia around it, there's no need to. You can get all the info you need much more efficiently and accurately other ways.
  - Jenda_ 3y ago
    > The number of people who carry smartphones around means the answer to this is almost certainly yes. Maybe they have no other real choice? This discussion is full of such cases.
- Jenda_ 3y ago
  So, maybe, the washing machine could have a... web page? No proprietary app store (where the app disappears when not updated to support the new OS version), no installation, usable from any device?
- codeulike 3y ago
  I think it's good that people are aware of the downsides to everyone-has-a-smartphone and I'm glad there are people like Snowden who have made us all very aware of that. And I think it's good people are trying to find ways to avoid the downsides. But I also think it's easy to take all the incredible benefits for-granted and only see the downsides. I remember what it was like 30 years ago and I much prefer now. Do you remember having to go to a physical location (library or town hall) to look things up? Basically no-one bothered and we all blundered around believing whatever some bloke in the pub had told us about. We all have the world in our pocket now and it's amazing. (Yes we have the problem of bubbles and misinformation but I still think information abundance wins out over information drought)

personjerry 3y ago

Fine, an app for laundry is overkill but man is the particular conclusion dumb. Imagine I said "I tried opening a door without a key!! Is technology making our lives better after all? Metallurgy is unnecessary!!"

thsksbd 3y ago
A key is $0.50, is dumb, cannot spy on you and is indestructible.. A phone is >1000x that and comes with distraction, surveillance, and is easy ti brake.
msdrigg 3y ago
This is the right takeaway honestly. I was hoping a comment like this would be the top comment, but unfortunately hackernews loves this kind of bait

shrtctroulette 3y ago

sidenote: so happy with the dead simple template of this blog

einpoklum 3y ago

tl;dr: He got a smartphone substitute from some desk, which works with the washing machines. After a bit of trouble working that, he managed to access his account and wash.

mihaaly 3y ago

> I tried doing my laundry without a smartphone. This proved to be difficult, since our laundry machines can only be operated with a smartphone app. After lots of struggle, I finally managed to do it, leading me to reflect on whether technology is actually making our lives better. On the current maniacally forced through and intentionally neglectful way (arbitrarily picking the superiority of a narrow concept over all else) it is not. Not at all. In the past 10-15 years the usability of technology is degrading. Got only overcomplicated, unnecessarily overwhelming (using it in places unnecessary or harmful), not better in making life easier. Just relocating the difficulty and complexity somewhere else, to some previously unkown domain. Be it gadgets, operating systems, home appliences, vechicles. Things went wrong somewhere by some reason. (rampage of clueless investment money? huge technical organizations serving only themselves? ...)

ryukoposting 3y ago
Be careful, pointless smartphone-ifying of everything is what keeps half this site employed.
- mihaaly 3y ago
  Right! : ) : (
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

thegreatwhale8 3y ago

Sorry, but this story reads like an AI generated text and the subject matter is ridiculous. The person in the text is narrow minded, selfish etc. There are a multitude of reasons public/commercial laundry would want to have an app. If one wants to have it tailored to their old-fashioned ways they have to own their own laundry machine.

brightstep 3y ago
It’s not always possible to have a personal laundry machine available. Is it too much to ask that the machines also accept a credit card scanned in-person?

khiqxj 3y ago

1. stop putting software in things 2. especially dont put webshit in things 3. especially dont put smartphone shit in things really, i'm not trying to sound rude, theres no other way to put it, you deserve it. its unfortunate that people value "politeness" over reason. this is the hard truth that people in this bubble have not been able to face for 20 years now. the web is an abomination which was never created for anything other than corporate interests and serving magazines. of course it's practically inoperable. same exact story for smartphones, it was created by some scum web company to carry out the old trope of making a software ecosystem where shitty devs that cant make their own software come to and said scummy company gets to rule over. none of this implies any good or even reasonably working software also laundry is a trivial task, it was only hard before washing machines. also this is one example of where technology actually made our lives better but all kinds of idiots like environmentalists and corpos are trying to ruin it.

truculent 3y ago

Did this article trip anyone else’s “is this GPT?” senses? I thought the prose style was very strange - quite verbose with a lot of redundant descriptors.

shijie 3y ago
It tripped my “trying to hard to write eloquent, witty prose” senses. I proofread a lot of papers in college and wrote a lot of columns in the school newspaper. This is a common style. Thesaurus-driven word choice.
- Pannoniae 3y ago
  Basically the "if I use fancy words, I sound smart to those who don't actually comprehend the words' meanings"
  - maksimur 3y ago
    I don't know if it's the guy's case, however, there are people who actually delight themselves in writing complex sentences comparable to a mathematician's delight in doing mathematics or a painter's artistry on canvas. I'm noticing it's mainly an US-centric trend to have negative feelings towards good and complex writing.
    - gcr 3y ago
      i used to do exactly this as an undergrad! i thought it made my writing sound whimsical or whatever, as if emulating the style of Lemony Snickett or _why the lucky stiff i've since replaced this (bad imho) habit with other bad habits, fortunately
      - maksimur 3y ago
        It goes without saying you shouldn't imitate the style of other people but have your own. Also, there's actually a feeling of joy in writing good prose and seeing the result, which is something I never mastered in English, as evidenced for example by my repeated use of "but", but (yeah..) kind of did in my native language.

karaterobot 3y ago

One significant problem with making your hardware dependent on an app is that if you are a washing machine company, you probably don't make mobile apps. So, you hire a contractor. They design an app without any expertise in the product or the domain, and program it on the cheap. It is trash. Later, the contractor goes out of business and you give the code to another contractor. They notice that the code is garbage, and not even garbage that somebody there made. Feature work is impossible, the app languishes. 1.5 stars in the app store. Every time there's an iOS update, people can't do their laundry for a couple weeks, until the one programmer working half time on the app can push an update. Later, you (the washing machine company) decide to sunset that product line, which means there's no updates to the app. iOS changes, the app stops working altogether, everybody has to buy a new washing machine. I've been that contractor, which is why I will never be the owner of an appliance that requires an app to function.

layer8 3y ago
Part of this modern sickness is having an OS that requires regular updates of the apps that run on it.
- snicker7 3y ago
  It’s more than that. The app likely has some backend dependencies that require some ongoing maintenance or cost. It’s not just that your washing machine depends on an iOS app, but on some DynamoDB table somewhere.
- Tyr42 3y ago
  If we only had a Windows phone...
  - shortrounddev2 3y ago
    My Nokia lumia was easily the best phone I ever owned
    - tobinfekkes 3y ago

linker3000 3y ago

My son had a near-identical experience at Uni in the UK, except for 'pod' substitute smartcard. For some reason, the laundry app would not run without crashing on his phone. The Uni could provide a loadable smartcard for the machines - but they had run out. The machines did not work with regular credit/debit cards or NFC phones. Result: For several weeks, son has to haul laundry on the bus to an off-campus launderette.

paganel 3y ago

Try parking in the majority of European cities without a (smart) phone, it has become close to impossible.

fortran77 3y ago

If in the United States, the thing to do is call an attorney and file an ADA lawsuit against the school. Find a disability that makes it difficult to use a smartphone and claim you have it. For example "Internet Addication" or "ADHD"

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

Decided to limit smartphone usage... by running whatsapp on a computer. Kids these days.

unethical_ban 3y ago
"Decided to limit realtime notification distractions and the constant temptation to glance at my ultraportable computer by... Installing a communication program widely used by friends on my bulkier computer that I only check periodically." Yes, it does make sense.

hnburnsy 3y ago

One could use an Android emulator without needing a smartphone.

vegetablepotpie 3y ago

This reminds me of my experience of getting the battery replaced for my iPhone. The authorized repair technician at Best Buy made me turn off “find my iPhone” before servicing the device. Turns out, somehow, I had two Apple accounts, one with a user name that is tied to my email address, and the other one where my user name is my email address. To my surprise Apple considers these to be distinct accounts. While I remember the password for my user name, and I assumed it was the same for the account that used my email address as the user name, turns out it was not and I could not turn off find my iPhone. Attempts to use my phone to reset my password lead to the settings app freezing up and giving me a gave a generic “could not connect to network” error message. Switching from cellular to WiFi did not help the situation. The technician was about to say that they would not be able to replace the battery for the day. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me that day for unrelated reasons and after returning to the store with it I was able to reset my password with the web interface. Modern technology has introduced a large number of seldom used use cases that are not well handled, but are essential when needed. Had I not had all the devices with me in my digital arsenal, I would not have been able to get my battery replaced. I have to wonder how many people face this issue and end up buying a new device to avoid the hassle.

NoNoisle 3y ago
This doesn’t sound right. You should be able to reset the password or at least start the process using the Apple support app or the website on the iPhone itself…setting is not the only way.
- vegetablepotpie 3y ago
  I omitted the step where the technician had me install the Apple support app as an alternative pathway to a password reset, but that had the same issue where a network connection could not be found regardless of being on WiFi or cellular.
lazyant 3y ago
Not only BestBuy; at the Apple store for an iPhone repair, they made me turn off "find my iPhone" and reset my password, so I guess it's SOP.

wheelerof4te 3y ago

Why WhatsApp for calls and texts? Why not use a simple dumb phone? In fact, the OP mentions that he has a Razr flip phone, but uses it without a SIM card?! And whoever thinks that using an app for controlling the washing machine is smart...isn't very smart.

beecafe 3y ago
[dead]

greenie_beans 3y ago

add me to the list of people without a smartphone who has to deal with bullshit like this.

sanjitb 3y ago

Speaking of the evils of internet-reliant devices and bad engineering: those MIT washing machines actually went down for two weeks. MIT changed the authentication configuration of their wireless network, the software couldn't re-connect, and all hell broke loose. They had to turn on some emergency operating mode that allowed students to use them for free, without any app.

bick_nyers 3y ago
Good, I mean why charge in the first place? So much other infrastructure gets rolled into tuition anyways.

oblak 3y ago

Just today I went into a Xiaomi only store, branded as Mi store something. After spending a few minutes looking around, I finally asked the guy if there's ANY product that works without an app. Surprisingly, there was - an electric shaving device (razors?). I couldn't stop laughing. Even things as simple of cheap pole/standing fan require apps.

ltr_ 3y ago

this has nothing to do with bad engineering, it's about stupid greedy investors/managers with to much power on decision making, decisions that they should not make. this is sad and an embarrassment to tech people. this industry is a joke.

rolph 3y ago

https://blacksprucehound.com/2011/09/26/how-to-wash-laundry-with-plunger/ https://blacksprucehound.com/2011/09/26/how-to-wash-laundry-... [2011]

bdavbdav 3y ago

I think the writer hit the nail on the head when they said they were the first one to ask for the iPod.

kotaKat 3y ago

I feel like it'd be easier to rally your student body to get rid of the stupid payment systems altogether and do what some other schools do: $free.99 laundry, paid for by a per-semester lump-sum "laundry fee". The washers and dryers are standard fare - still commercial units, just set to $0. It's so much nicer to be able to card into the laundry room, throw your clothes in, hit start, and leave without having to fumble with Enshittification.

ProllyInfamous 3y ago

>"I got a Yubikey which obviates the need for SMS-based 2FA." Details?! I do not carry a cell phone and this would be incredibly convenient. Modern systems don't seem to even try working with my numeric pager.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
They are good for logging in from a laptop. Never seen them on location. Get two of the cheaper ones to start with. Keep one as backup in a safe place.

Aerbil313 3y ago

Everyone should read Ted Kaczynski.