6 ms·

I'd love to take a stance like that, but the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation, and I have quite limited time for my hom

I'd love to take a stance like that, but the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation, and I have quite limited time for my home maintenance + improvement projects as it is (my bench currently has a new faucet set to fix the leaky bathroom faucet, as well as an exhaust fan to fix the broken one in our bathroom... and those are just the things that are currently broken, not the dozen or so routine maintenance things I am behind on otherwise!). If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours (and wrangling that dumb dishwasher back into the minivan, probably with some water spilling out this time, causing more pain since it'll cause minivan issues lol), I don't know if I have the time for it. That also assumes I can find a suitable replacement unit (and wrangle it, and install it) without seriously disrupting the dish-handling routine in the house for another day or three! Sadly, that means Bosch wins this time. But if I never buy another Bosch device again (I have one of their water heaters, and a fancy ear thermometer that I rather liked...), maybe they will lose in the long run. Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher.

klipklop 2y ago
Yup. It's time to replace the controlboard with an ESP32 or something! Did you keep your old dishwasher?
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  I'm having a local appliance recycler pick it up tomorrow — they aggregate these machines, repair various ones using parts from non-working units, and get them back into use again. I'd rather that than it sit in my house until I get time to hack it together again.
AceJohnny2 2y ago
There has to be some backpressure on the supply chain. I appreciate that you used your clout to make the issue public, but sometimes I worry that it only goes so far as our little echo chamber.
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  If it's any consolation, the video I posted on YouTube is getting some traction. If it can get a good number of views, maybe it can at least generate enough impact to cut off a few hundred units of sales. That won't make a massive impact, but it's better than nothing. If Bosch allowed me to update the firmware of my unit to not lock out features, I'd maybe consider doing that locally over an ad-hoc connection. Wish they would've just included Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Matter instead.
  - aaronax 2y ago
    I can almost guarantee that I will now start seeing references to this in dishwasher recommendation threads on forums and Reddit now. And it won't be me doing all of it, I swear! :)
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  Perhaps there's an opening in the market for an appliance company that brands itself on self-repair and self-hosted connectivity? All most people want is "push button and do the thing as long as I live".
  - moepstar 2y ago
    Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I mean, we all know what people say they want and what they'll do when/if they buy something may be two totally different things. And: creating a dishwasher (or $appliance) that does its actual job good enough to be worth buying isn't something that can be hacked up in a weekend or two. Edit to add: maybe - as Bosch pretty much has figured out how to make good diswhasheres - it'd be easier and more approachable to hack, rip out, replace the control electronics. Chances are this is going to work on more model than the one...
    - h0l0cube 2y ago
      The calculation about whether to repair something or not usually hinges around labor and material costs vs replacement cost. The more difficult something is to repair, and the more expensive the components are, the less like it is to be repaired. It's probably also true that high turnover of goods across brands due to early replacement allows for slimmer margins and higher yields, and hence lower cost of purchase. So on the other extreme, make things break more often and sell them cheaper and more often, which seems to be the status quo. The economic problem to solve, then, is how to encourage brands to increase the durability of their goods. There are some review publications that perform stress-testing, but few keep metrics on long-term durability in a real-world setting. At a minimum, I check consumer review sites before I buy just to avoid the worst brands, and there you do see some people coming back after a few years to leave a warning to other people. And perhaps this kind of feedback has some effect. Hopefully people start prizing 'dumb' products, and start leaving bad reviews on products that rely on an internet connection, when they're left stranded after the connection drops out.
ryao 2y ago
Do you have a Home Depot or Costco near buy that offers free installation and haul away? Most people who get these appliances have the store do all of the work you did.
- __turbobrew__ 2y ago
  Yea, most places will do the install for free/cheap. At some point you have to choose how much your time is worth.
  - vladvasiliu 2y ago
    Well, that's true on the face of it. But, at least where I live, this service can be hit-and-miss. The retailer of both my dishwasher and washing machine provided this service, and both times it was a shoddy job. On the dishwasher, they had a hard time routing the hoses properly, so the unit was sticking out something like 3 cm from under the furniture. I had to redo it myself. On the washing machine, they routed one of the pipes with too narrow an angle, so that the water wouldn't come out. Fortunately, to the point of this post, the machine was "smart" enough to figure this out and complain about it (via a code on its display).
- nothercastle 2y ago
  It’s cheap but it’s not available for 1+ months so you have to live without a dishwasher for a month. Idk about your family but mine would struggle for more than a week without one
  - hollerith 2y ago
    If only there were some temporary method to get dishes clean without a dishwasher. Because it is temporary, it would be acceptable if the method required more human labor than the dishwasher method.
    - aaronax 2y ago
      If only a person were to do some math and realize that spending four hours installing a dishwasher is less time than doing dishes by hand for a month. (and dealing with 50% odds of getting a terrible install by grumpy people who ding up stuff in your kitchen)
CamperBob2 2y ago
[flagged]
eduction 2y ago
How long did it take to write the blog post
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  About 20 minutes; it's a lightly edited transcript of the video.
dredmorbius 2y ago
Assuming you're American, your state's attorney general office is responsible for consumer complaints. It's free to file an issue, and in most cases you'll get a direct response. The issue here is product fails to perform as expected, and resolution is that the manufacturer remove the unit at their cost and give you a full refund. Arranging an alternative purchase is your issue. And contact your local news media as well. They love stories, particularly if there's existing footage they can air. VNRs (video news releases), the original "fake news" became a hot item in the 1990s Because Reasons. And you've already got the footage and audio.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did.
- flandry93 2y ago
  Funny how there is always someone who posts "you do X, and you will fail", and then follow up with "you will get hurt and/or hurt others" and then "we will punish you for trying". Like they work for the corporation, to spread the message of hopelessness. Embrace the tyranny of fate! Maybe someone who is skillful enough to be able to DIY a micro-controller will also think about these issues and deal with them too? Or is that too hard to imagine?
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    99% of people who played with an Arduino in school are not EEs and are woefully unqualified to be doing that sort of tinkering for a hardwired appliance managing high voltages, water valves, and heating elements that can all cause mayhem when a self-taught Dunning-Krugerian steps out of their wheelhouse.
  - AdieuToLogic 2y ago
    > Funny how there is always someone who posts "you do X, and you will fail" ... That is not what the post to which you replied said nor implied. Instead, it reads thusly: Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did. This is clearly a warning to those reading this thread. Likely also an attempted knowledge sharing with the post's author. > Maybe someone who is skillful enough to be able to DIY a micro-controller will also think about these issues and deal with them too? Maybe all people who attempt such things are not aware of the concerns raised?
  - aaronax 2y ago
hedgehog 2y ago
For what it's worth I have an 800 series and it also made some features like delay start app-only. Even if I was ok with that it's still a terrible design for a multi-person household. See also: cars that are going app-only for remote start.
rkagerer 2y ago
Out of curiosity, how long did 'ya spend on that blog post, the YouTube video, and various platforms reading/answering comments related to this experience?
rendall 2y ago
> I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation... I suspect you're going to sink a whole lot more time over the unsatisfactory lifetime of the dishwasher. It sounds like the sunk-cost fallacy.
agilob 2y ago
>If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours >Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher. So you'd rather waste more time, probably days or weeks, on a hack where Bosch can change implementation anytime, than return it?
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  Returning an appliance though will leave you without that appliance for a while. Attempting to reverse-engineer it shouldn't affect his ability to clean dishes and is also fun to do.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  People will make the choices that are rational for them. When your job is making content about hacking stuff, wasting 8 hours on hacking a dishwasher that both generates content and generates useful information for other people is a better use of time than wasting 4 hours returning a dishwasher in the hopes that you personally will be the straw that breaks the IoT camel’s back.
  - agilob 2y ago
    so the next step here is Bosch puts eco mode behind a paywall.
fransje26 2y ago
> the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation That's a bit of a sunken-cost fallacy. Here is a device that is going to be used every day for the coming 5 to 10 years, with a least 3 useful functions that cannot be accessed, and it's going to annoy you every time you use it. Some devices simply have to work without friction, and that is worth spending home maintenance time on (and our hard-earned cash). Dishwashers, washing machines, printers.. Life is too short to waste time and energy on those, and I would argue that the energy, time, friction and annoyance you are probably going to encounter on the lifetime of that device is probably more than the 6 extra hours that would have been spent returning this unit. Just my 2c, from the sideline, not walking in your shoes.
- valiant55 2y ago
  Jeff has 5 kids (mentioned in the video). I'm surprised he had 6 hours to fluff around with a dishwasher in the first place. I have 2 and certainly am careful about how I spend any free time I manage to find.
  - fransje26 2y ago
    I didn't watch the video, so I didn't know the specifics, although he did mention a tight schedule and children in his post. But especially in such a case, I still believe that the general point stands. If time and energy is tight, you cannot afford to have friction points due to the appliances you use daily, because the friction they cause is a perpetual reoccurrence that is really energy draining. I understand that time is short and budgets can be tight, but on such things, put the effort and the money in to make sure they work the first time around, and to make sure they stay out of our way. Life is too short to be the slave of the malfunctioning devices around us, and it's only once the re-occurring low-level friction points are gone that we generally realize how draining they can be in everyday life.
fransje26 2y ago
Please have a look at this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297 It's linking to a website with the following explanation: However, perhaps inline with the German attitudes towards privacy, the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key, but from then on the appliances can be operated entirely disconnected from the network.
account42 2y ago
Except if customers like you don't take a stand now then by the time you get a replacement all the other Brands (some of which are made by the same company as Bosh appliances) will have likely moved to the same bullshit.
atif089 2y ago
Hey Jeff, I follow you on YouTube. I hope you're recovering well. Wishing you all the best.

klipklop 2y ago

Yup. It's time to replace the controlboard with an ESP32 or something! Did you keep your old dishwasher?

geerlingguy 2y ago
I'm having a local appliance recycler pick it up tomorrow — they aggregate these machines, repair various ones using parts from non-working units, and get them back into use again. I'd rather that than it sit in my house until I get time to hack it together again.

AceJohnny2 2y ago

There has to be some backpressure on the supply chain. I appreciate that you used your clout to make the issue public, but sometimes I worry that it only goes so far as our little echo chamber.

geerlingguy 2y ago
If it's any consolation, the video I posted on YouTube is getting some traction. If it can get a good number of views, maybe it can at least generate enough impact to cut off a few hundred units of sales. That won't make a massive impact, but it's better than nothing. If Bosch allowed me to update the firmware of my unit to not lock out features, I'd maybe consider doing that locally over an ad-hoc connection. Wish they would've just included Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Matter instead.
- aaronax 2y ago
  I can almost guarantee that I will now start seeing references to this in dishwasher recommendation threads on forums and Reddit now. And it won't be me doing all of it, I swear! :)
h0l0cube 2y ago
Perhaps there's an opening in the market for an appliance company that brands itself on self-repair and self-hosted connectivity? All most people want is "push button and do the thing as long as I live".
- moepstar 2y ago
  Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I mean, we all know what people say they want and what they'll do when/if they buy something may be two totally different things. And: creating a dishwasher (or $appliance) that does its actual job good enough to be worth buying isn't something that can be hacked up in a weekend or two. Edit to add: maybe - as Bosch pretty much has figured out how to make good diswhasheres - it'd be easier and more approachable to hack, rip out, replace the control electronics. Chances are this is going to work on more model than the one...
  - h0l0cube 2y ago
    The calculation about whether to repair something or not usually hinges around labor and material costs vs replacement cost. The more difficult something is to repair, and the more expensive the components are, the less like it is to be repaired. It's probably also true that high turnover of goods across brands due to early replacement allows for slimmer margins and higher yields, and hence lower cost of purchase. So on the other extreme, make things break more often and sell them cheaper and more often, which seems to be the status quo. The economic problem to solve, then, is how to encourage brands to increase the durability of their goods. There are some review publications that perform stress-testing, but few keep metrics on long-term durability in a real-world setting. At a minimum, I check consumer review sites before I buy just to avoid the worst brands, and there you do see some people coming back after a few years to leave a warning to other people. And perhaps this kind of feedback has some effect. Hopefully people start prizing 'dumb' products, and start leaving bad reviews on products that rely on an internet connection, when they're left stranded after the connection drops out.

ryao 2y ago

Do you have a Home Depot or Costco near buy that offers free installation and haul away? Most people who get these appliances have the store do all of the work you did.

__turbobrew__ 2y ago
Yea, most places will do the install for free/cheap. At some point you have to choose how much your time is worth.
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  Well, that's true on the face of it. But, at least where I live, this service can be hit-and-miss. The retailer of both my dishwasher and washing machine provided this service, and both times it was a shoddy job. On the dishwasher, they had a hard time routing the hoses properly, so the unit was sticking out something like 3 cm from under the furniture. I had to redo it myself. On the washing machine, they routed one of the pipes with too narrow an angle, so that the water wouldn't come out. Fortunately, to the point of this post, the machine was "smart" enough to figure this out and complain about it (via a code on its display).
nothercastle 2y ago
It’s cheap but it’s not available for 1+ months so you have to live without a dishwasher for a month. Idk about your family but mine would struggle for more than a week without one
- hollerith 2y ago
  If only there were some temporary method to get dishes clean without a dishwasher. Because it is temporary, it would be acceptable if the method required more human labor than the dishwasher method.
  - aaronax 2y ago
    If only a person were to do some math and realize that spending four hours installing a dishwasher is less time than doing dishes by hand for a month. (and dealing with 50% odds of getting a terrible install by grumpy people who ding up stuff in your kitchen)

CamperBob2 2y ago

[flagged]

eduction 2y ago

How long did it take to write the blog post

geerlingguy 2y ago
About 20 minutes; it's a lightly edited transcript of the video.

dredmorbius 2y ago

Assuming you're American, your state's attorney general office is responsible for consumer complaints. It's free to file an issue, and in most cases you'll get a direct response. The issue here is product fails to perform as expected, and resolution is that the manufacturer remove the unit at their cost and give you a full refund. Arranging an alternative purchase is your issue. And contact your local news media as well. They love stories, particularly if there's existing footage they can air. VNRs (video news releases), the original "fake news" became a hot item in the 1990s Because Reasons. And you've already got the footage and audio.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did.

flandry93 2y ago
Funny how there is always someone who posts "you do X, and you will fail", and then follow up with "you will get hurt and/or hurt others" and then "we will punish you for trying". Like they work for the corporation, to spread the message of hopelessness. Embrace the tyranny of fate! Maybe someone who is skillful enough to be able to DIY a micro-controller will also think about these issues and deal with them too? Or is that too hard to imagine?
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  99% of people who played with an Arduino in school are not EEs and are woefully unqualified to be doing that sort of tinkering for a hardwired appliance managing high voltages, water valves, and heating elements that can all cause mayhem when a self-taught Dunning-Krugerian steps out of their wheelhouse.
- AdieuToLogic 2y ago
  > Funny how there is always someone who posts "you do X, and you will fail" ... That is not what the post to which you replied said nor implied. Instead, it reads thusly: Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did. This is clearly a warning to those reading this thread. Likely also an attempted knowledge sharing with the post's author. > Maybe someone who is skillful enough to be able to DIY a micro-controller will also think about these issues and deal with them too? Maybe all people who attempt such things are not aware of the concerns raised?
- aaronax 2y ago

hedgehog 2y ago

For what it's worth I have an 800 series and it also made some features like delay start app-only. Even if I was ok with that it's still a terrible design for a multi-person household. See also: cars that are going app-only for remote start.

rkagerer 2y ago

Out of curiosity, how long did 'ya spend on that blog post, the YouTube video, and various platforms reading/answering comments related to this experience?

rendall 2y ago

> I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation... I suspect you're going to sink a whole lot more time over the unsatisfactory lifetime of the dishwasher. It sounds like the sunk-cost fallacy.

agilob 2y ago

>If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours >Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher. So you'd rather waste more time, probably days or weeks, on a hack where Bosch can change implementation anytime, than return it?

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
Returning an appliance though will leave you without that appliance for a while. Attempting to reverse-engineer it shouldn't affect his ability to clean dishes and is also fun to do.
tpmoney 2y ago
People will make the choices that are rational for them. When your job is making content about hacking stuff, wasting 8 hours on hacking a dishwasher that both generates content and generates useful information for other people is a better use of time than wasting 4 hours returning a dishwasher in the hopes that you personally will be the straw that breaks the IoT camel’s back.
- agilob 2y ago
  so the next step here is Bosch puts eco mode behind a paywall.

fransje26 2y ago

> the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation That's a bit of a sunken-cost fallacy. Here is a device that is going to be used every day for the coming 5 to 10 years, with a least 3 useful functions that cannot be accessed, and it's going to annoy you every time you use it. Some devices simply have to work without friction, and that is worth spending home maintenance time on (and our hard-earned cash). Dishwashers, washing machines, printers.. Life is too short to waste time and energy on those, and I would argue that the energy, time, friction and annoyance you are probably going to encounter on the lifetime of that device is probably more than the 6 extra hours that would have been spent returning this unit. Just my 2c, from the sideline, not walking in your shoes.

valiant55 2y ago
Jeff has 5 kids (mentioned in the video). I'm surprised he had 6 hours to fluff around with a dishwasher in the first place. I have 2 and certainly am careful about how I spend any free time I manage to find.
- fransje26 2y ago
  I didn't watch the video, so I didn't know the specifics, although he did mention a tight schedule and children in his post. But especially in such a case, I still believe that the general point stands. If time and energy is tight, you cannot afford to have friction points due to the appliances you use daily, because the friction they cause is a perpetual reoccurrence that is really energy draining. I understand that time is short and budgets can be tight, but on such things, put the effort and the money in to make sure they work the first time around, and to make sure they stay out of our way. Life is too short to be the slave of the malfunctioning devices around us, and it's only once the re-occurring low-level friction points are gone that we generally realize how draining they can be in everyday life.

fransje26 2y ago

Please have a look at this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297 It's linking to a website with the following explanation: However, perhaps inline with the German attitudes towards privacy, the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key, but from then on the appliances can be operated entirely disconnected from the network.

account42 2y ago

Except if customers like you don't take a stand now then by the time you get a replacement all the other Brands (some of which are made by the same company as Bosh appliances) will have likely moved to the same bullshit.

atif089 2y ago

Hey Jeff, I follow you on YouTube. I hope you're recovering well. Wishing you all the best.