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I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a network

I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a networked washing machine.

t-writescode 3y ago
Progress tracking, diagnostics, temperature tracking, load unevenness alerting, remote disable if broken, etc.
Analemma_ 3y ago
I could imagine a situation like, "I will be out all day and only return in the late evening - if I start the wash cycle when leaving, it will sit wet in the machine all day. But if I start it when I return, I will have to stay awake to put it in the dryer. I'd like to start it on a timer so the wash cycle finishes just as I return." But that's both pretty contrived and most non-smart washing machines can do that with a timer anyway.
nomel 3y ago
I get significantly cheaper electricity at night ($0.12 vs > $0.50/kwh, stupid California). Being able to schedule saves money, not that WiFi is necessarily required.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  Did you check how much power your washer uses? Mine uses 0.4 kwh so you'd be saving 15.2 cents per load. Not really worth the hassle IMO.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    The dryer is more interesting
  - nomel 3y ago
    You've neglected to include the energy used to heat the water.
    - dzhiurgis 3y ago
      Yes, using ~cold water - washer does not have hot water inlet and using "daily" programme. n.b. it's pretty new albeit cheap generic Midea front loader
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  How much electricity is your washing machine using?
- HPsquared 3y ago
  A lot of washing machines remember their previous state when the power goes out. You can use this to your advantage using a smart switch: start the wash cycle, turn off the power straight after. When you turn the power back on at a scheduled time (using the smart switch), the washing machine will pick up where it left off (at the beginning of the cycle). Also a lot of them just have a timer built-in anyway.
  - e28eta 3y ago
    Careful about switching large inductive loads on a smart switch, the ones I’d looked at weren’t rated for big inductive loads (like the motor inside a washing machine or a dryer).
    - HPsquared 3y ago
      Inductive loads are less of a problem for alternating current. (Still a bit of an issue, though). I was thinking more, turn the switch off within a few seconds of starting the cycle. Usually nothing happens in that time other than the drain pump doing a quick cycle to remove any residual water.
      - perryizgr8 3y ago
        This is exactly what I do with my dishwasher. I load the dishes at night, start the cycle and immediately switch off the smart switch while it is just trying to empty any residual water. The smart switch turns on every night at 3 am and the washer resumes with whatever settings I had chosen. By the time I'm awake the washing has just finished.
cmckn 3y ago
When I was in college, the machines in my dorm building’s laundry room would send you an SMS when the cycle finished. It was super handy, and would be awesome to have if your home is multi-level (or the machine is tucked away where no one can hear it scream)
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  So we have three laundry rooms here where I live, and they were all managed by CSC ServiceWorks until recently. When I first moved in, CSC had an amazing system setup, whereby you could go to their website and see a real-time animation of all the machines in the room, their current status, and their remaining time. This page updated very rapidly and always showed accurate information, including any machines that were out of service. Therefore, it was very easy for me to put together some laundry loads, and then navigate to that website and see exactly whether I'd be able to go downstairs and start my loads immediately, or how long I'd need to wait until machines were freed up for my purposes. Then they enshittified it. They took away the central payment kiosk and installed individual card readers on each machine. These card readers had some unholy mix of Bluetooth and WiFi on them and the new app was completely incompatible with the Android tablet I had at the time. Apparently it was mandatory to have both Internet and BT access before you could even start a machine anymore. To add insult to injury, they deprecated the public status website and walled up the status reports inside the app. In fact, you couldn't even get a report until you'd paid to start one of the machines, thus invalidating my old strategy of proactively checking for availability. Then there was a protracted battle between landlady and CSC whereby there were many malfunctions and accusations about whose responsibility it was. The pandemic struck, and there was some third-party disinfecting service that was supposed to be sanitizing machines, but left huge gobs of lint and detritus behind them all anyway. Eventually it came to a head, and the landlady severed their contract with CSC and brought in a new service company. They have apps and cash preloading and whatever and you know what? I stopped using the laundry room entirely. Now I bring my clothes to a Wash & Fold service, and have it professionally cleaned, because doing laundry is too strenuous for me anymore. Problem solved!
mft_ 3y ago
I'm totally with you, except a notification that it's finished would actually be really helpful. It's apparently possible to track a washing machine's progress with a smart switch that monitors power draw; I've got one lying around so might try to implement that soon, to complement my hacky RPi-Ring-doorbell-announcer :)
- sroussey 3y ago
  My Miele washer and dryer send me notifications when done.
  - kioleanu 3y ago
    That is, I think, the only valid use case. I have an AEG washer that does some voodoo to decide wash times and only shows the estimate at the start, then it weighs the clothes, looks at how dirty they are and so on. The washer is two floors down and I never know when it’s actually done. As a side note, I think my washer is “smart” ready, meaning it has all the electronics already in and the panel has the lights already installed, just that it’s not activated because a didn’t pay another 100 euros for it. I guess another use case would be measuring water and energy consumption but I doubt that people paying top dollar for these appliances are the type to keep an eye on such things.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      "but I doubt that people paying top dollar for these appliances are the type to keep an eye on such things." Some people do - to brag in their circles (and to their own consciousness) how green they are. So then you can go flying around the world for fun with a clear consciousness ...
    - l33tman 3y ago
      I sometimes use it to start the machine remotely when I'm away the whole day, so I can time it to be ready when I get home and can switch over the clothes to the tumbler immediately.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
XorNot 3y ago
I have a smart plug on my washing machine and dryer which I use to try and identify when the cycles have finished. It doesn't work great, I'd much prefer a direct API to send a notification when the machine says it's actually finished.
- kioleanu 3y ago
  You can buy smart vibrations sensors for that. No vibrating should mean it’s done, unless it lets the clothes soak- I have no idea, washed clothes hundreds of times but I’ve never looked to see what the washer actually does
daveoc64 3y ago
I have an LG Washer/Dryer with smart functions. As others have said, the notifications are useful, but you can also track the wash/dry cycle and see what it's done so far, what is left and the estimated remaining time. I like it because the smart features are optional and are genuinely useful.
- RajT88 3y ago
  My sister has such a smart washer and funds these same features useful. I had to helo her get it connected to wifi - it would not stay connected. Turns out she was on the same channel as literally all her neighbors.
karim79 3y ago
Most people I know who have the connected "white" appliances are mostly interested in the reported resource usage. I have a connected LG dishwasher, and it's possible to have it report water usage, electricity usage, and other stats to home automation hubs (like home assistant) for aggregation. I'm not so into that, but I know people who buy connected domestic things for that very reason.
archi42 3y ago
Our washing machine and dryer are networked (Bosch). Current benefits are secondary reasons and I could live without them: - Notifications when done: Nice, but a beeper would work, too. - Select program via App, based on what I put into the machine: Occasionally useful when I'm not sure. Also, I can put in my wife's cloths and let her pick the correct program (I did that wrong once and we both don't want that to happen anymore). - The dryer can load the correct settings based on the washing machine's last cycle. Very convenient. What's planned (primary reason): Our photovoltaic is also networked, so the plan is to eventually start the cycle when we get energy for essentially free. This saves us money and allows us to use more clean energy instead of the grid mix. I guess the non-smart variant also supports this by setting the "finished in x hours". What I don't like: Our smart home is fully offline, except for these two appliances. I thought there was a local API, but last time I checked I could not find the info anymore. Also, they sometimes lose connectivity to their cloud (not sure why, maybe hick-ups after that archaic 24h disconnect) and need to be restarted to reconnect. Edit: Ah, mind we did first replace the old, power-wasting dryer with the new one (amortized after ~2y). Later when the old washing machine started failing, we got this one (which is also better suited for our needs, regarding size; and generally uses less water IIRC). I wouldn't have replaced good units for the sake of smartness. Obviously we could have saved some money by getting more basic appliances, but we had good timing on offers.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > Select program via App I'm guessing this was mostly the reason it has any connectivity at all. If they can convince you to run an app they can start getting all kinds of data off your cell phone 24/7 if they wanted to, even if the app requests no permissions at all.
  - archi42 3y ago
    Living in Europe the GDPR applies, and with Bosch there is a better chance that they stick to it compared to other brands. Of course I don't know for sure. The app transferred 1.56MB of data in 3.5 months. While the could include lots of data that I don't want them to have, at least it's not a massive amount indicating non stop tracking. Ultimately you're right, and I would love to have the two appliances fully local (the other smart things don't even have Internet access, thanks to awesome projects such as Tasmota or Valetudo), including fancy program selection.
redcobra762 3y ago
Really? “Hey your washing is done, come move it to the dryer.” “Hey, it’s been a year since you replaced your filters.”
SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago
Well, clearly if manufacturers want to continue making their machines less like they used to, they'll need all the analytics they can get to figure out which A/B tested engineered failures result in the lowest continued usage.
callalex 3y ago
Notifications are my main use case. The huge gaping downside is that they removed every dial and most buttons so unless you want a “normal” cycle you have to use an app to select the cycle. It’s neat that there are specific cycles for specific things and all, but not even having a “permanent press” option selectable without an app is incredibly stupid.
standeven 3y ago
Here’s the only terrible use case I’ve found; my Samsung washer and dryer now interrupt movies on my Samsung TV to let me know when they complete a cycle.
delfinom 3y ago
Zwave & zigbee + HA or another home automation platform > some wifi connected data mining crap with vendor lockin for turning off lights across the room.

I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a networked washing machine.

t-writescode 3y ago

Progress tracking, diagnostics, temperature tracking, load unevenness alerting, remote disable if broken, etc.

Analemma_ 3y ago

I could imagine a situation like, "I will be out all day and only return in the late evening - if I start the wash cycle when leaving, it will sit wet in the machine all day. But if I start it when I return, I will have to stay awake to put it in the dryer. I'd like to start it on a timer so the wash cycle finishes just as I return." But that's both pretty contrived and most non-smart washing machines can do that with a timer anyway.

nomel 3y ago

I get significantly cheaper electricity at night ($0.12 vs > $0.50/kwh, stupid California). Being able to schedule saves money, not that WiFi is necessarily required.

dzhiurgis 3y ago
Did you check how much power your washer uses? Mine uses 0.4 kwh so you'd be saving 15.2 cents per load. Not really worth the hassle IMO.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  The dryer is more interesting
- nomel 3y ago
  You've neglected to include the energy used to heat the water.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    Yes, using ~cold water - washer does not have hot water inlet and using "daily" programme. n.b. it's pretty new albeit cheap generic Midea front loader
Eisenstein 3y ago
How much electricity is your washing machine using?
HPsquared 3y ago
A lot of washing machines remember their previous state when the power goes out. You can use this to your advantage using a smart switch: start the wash cycle, turn off the power straight after. When you turn the power back on at a scheduled time (using the smart switch), the washing machine will pick up where it left off (at the beginning of the cycle). Also a lot of them just have a timer built-in anyway.
- e28eta 3y ago
  Careful about switching large inductive loads on a smart switch, the ones I’d looked at weren’t rated for big inductive loads (like the motor inside a washing machine or a dryer).
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    Inductive loads are less of a problem for alternating current. (Still a bit of an issue, though). I was thinking more, turn the switch off within a few seconds of starting the cycle. Usually nothing happens in that time other than the drain pump doing a quick cycle to remove any residual water.
    - perryizgr8 3y ago
      This is exactly what I do with my dishwasher. I load the dishes at night, start the cycle and immediately switch off the smart switch while it is just trying to empty any residual water. The smart switch turns on every night at 3 am and the washer resumes with whatever settings I had chosen. By the time I'm awake the washing has just finished.

cmckn 3y ago

When I was in college, the machines in my dorm building’s laundry room would send you an SMS when the cycle finished. It was super handy, and would be awesome to have if your home is multi-level (or the machine is tucked away where no one can hear it scream)

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
So we have three laundry rooms here where I live, and they were all managed by CSC ServiceWorks until recently. When I first moved in, CSC had an amazing system setup, whereby you could go to their website and see a real-time animation of all the machines in the room, their current status, and their remaining time. This page updated very rapidly and always showed accurate information, including any machines that were out of service. Therefore, it was very easy for me to put together some laundry loads, and then navigate to that website and see exactly whether I'd be able to go downstairs and start my loads immediately, or how long I'd need to wait until machines were freed up for my purposes. Then they enshittified it. They took away the central payment kiosk and installed individual card readers on each machine. These card readers had some unholy mix of Bluetooth and WiFi on them and the new app was completely incompatible with the Android tablet I had at the time. Apparently it was mandatory to have both Internet and BT access before you could even start a machine anymore. To add insult to injury, they deprecated the public status website and walled up the status reports inside the app. In fact, you couldn't even get a report until you'd paid to start one of the machines, thus invalidating my old strategy of proactively checking for availability. Then there was a protracted battle between landlady and CSC whereby there were many malfunctions and accusations about whose responsibility it was. The pandemic struck, and there was some third-party disinfecting service that was supposed to be sanitizing machines, but left huge gobs of lint and detritus behind them all anyway. Eventually it came to a head, and the landlady severed their contract with CSC and brought in a new service company. They have apps and cash preloading and whatever and you know what? I stopped using the laundry room entirely. Now I bring my clothes to a Wash & Fold service, and have it professionally cleaned, because doing laundry is too strenuous for me anymore. Problem solved!

mft_ 3y ago

I'm totally with you, except a notification that it's finished would actually be really helpful. It's apparently possible to track a washing machine's progress with a smart switch that monitors power draw; I've got one lying around so might try to implement that soon, to complement my hacky RPi-Ring-doorbell-announcer :)

sroussey 3y ago
My Miele washer and dryer send me notifications when done.
- kioleanu 3y ago
  That is, I think, the only valid use case. I have an AEG washer that does some voodoo to decide wash times and only shows the estimate at the start, then it weighs the clothes, looks at how dirty they are and so on. The washer is two floors down and I never know when it’s actually done. As a side note, I think my washer is “smart” ready, meaning it has all the electronics already in and the panel has the lights already installed, just that it’s not activated because a didn’t pay another 100 euros for it. I guess another use case would be measuring water and energy consumption but I doubt that people paying top dollar for these appliances are the type to keep an eye on such things.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "but I doubt that people paying top dollar for these appliances are the type to keep an eye on such things." Some people do - to brag in their circles (and to their own consciousness) how green they are. So then you can go flying around the world for fun with a clear consciousness ...
  - l33tman 3y ago
    I sometimes use it to start the machine remotely when I'm away the whole day, so I can time it to be ready when I get home and can switch over the clothes to the tumbler immediately.
dzhiurgis 3y ago

XorNot 3y ago

I have a smart plug on my washing machine and dryer which I use to try and identify when the cycles have finished. It doesn't work great, I'd much prefer a direct API to send a notification when the machine says it's actually finished.

kioleanu 3y ago
You can buy smart vibrations sensors for that. No vibrating should mean it’s done, unless it lets the clothes soak- I have no idea, washed clothes hundreds of times but I’ve never looked to see what the washer actually does

daveoc64 3y ago

I have an LG Washer/Dryer with smart functions. As others have said, the notifications are useful, but you can also track the wash/dry cycle and see what it's done so far, what is left and the estimated remaining time. I like it because the smart features are optional and are genuinely useful.

RajT88 3y ago
My sister has such a smart washer and funds these same features useful. I had to helo her get it connected to wifi - it would not stay connected. Turns out she was on the same channel as literally all her neighbors.

karim79 3y ago

Most people I know who have the connected "white" appliances are mostly interested in the reported resource usage. I have a connected LG dishwasher, and it's possible to have it report water usage, electricity usage, and other stats to home automation hubs (like home assistant) for aggregation. I'm not so into that, but I know people who buy connected domestic things for that very reason.

archi42 3y ago

Our washing machine and dryer are networked (Bosch). Current benefits are secondary reasons and I could live without them: - Notifications when done: Nice, but a beeper would work, too. - Select program via App, based on what I put into the machine: Occasionally useful when I'm not sure. Also, I can put in my wife's cloths and let her pick the correct program (I did that wrong once and we both don't want that to happen anymore). - The dryer can load the correct settings based on the washing machine's last cycle. Very convenient. What's planned (primary reason): Our photovoltaic is also networked, so the plan is to eventually start the cycle when we get energy for essentially free. This saves us money and allows us to use more clean energy instead of the grid mix. I guess the non-smart variant also supports this by setting the "finished in x hours". What I don't like: Our smart home is fully offline, except for these two appliances. I thought there was a local API, but last time I checked I could not find the info anymore. Also, they sometimes lose connectivity to their cloud (not sure why, maybe hick-ups after that archaic 24h disconnect) and need to be restarted to reconnect. Edit: Ah, mind we did first replace the old, power-wasting dryer with the new one (amortized after ~2y). Later when the old washing machine started failing, we got this one (which is also better suited for our needs, regarding size; and generally uses less water IIRC). I wouldn't have replaced good units for the sake of smartness. Obviously we could have saved some money by getting more basic appliances, but we had good timing on offers.

autoexec 3y ago
> Select program via App I'm guessing this was mostly the reason it has any connectivity at all. If they can convince you to run an app they can start getting all kinds of data off your cell phone 24/7 if they wanted to, even if the app requests no permissions at all.
- archi42 3y ago
  Living in Europe the GDPR applies, and with Bosch there is a better chance that they stick to it compared to other brands. Of course I don't know for sure. The app transferred 1.56MB of data in 3.5 months. While the could include lots of data that I don't want them to have, at least it's not a massive amount indicating non stop tracking. Ultimately you're right, and I would love to have the two appliances fully local (the other smart things don't even have Internet access, thanks to awesome projects such as Tasmota or Valetudo), including fancy program selection.

redcobra762 3y ago

Really? “Hey your washing is done, come move it to the dryer.” “Hey, it’s been a year since you replaced your filters.”

SpaghettiCthulu 3y ago

Well, clearly if manufacturers want to continue making their machines less like they used to, they'll need all the analytics they can get to figure out which A/B tested engineered failures result in the lowest continued usage.

callalex 3y ago

Notifications are my main use case. The huge gaping downside is that they removed every dial and most buttons so unless you want a “normal” cycle you have to use an app to select the cycle. It’s neat that there are specific cycles for specific things and all, but not even having a “permanent press” option selectable without an app is incredibly stupid.

standeven 3y ago

Here’s the only terrible use case I’ve found; my Samsung washer and dryer now interrupt movies on my Samsung TV to let me know when they complete a cycle.

delfinom 3y ago

Zwave & zigbee + HA or another home automation platform > some wifi connected data mining crap with vendor lockin for turning off lights across the room.