Hacker News Reader

Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

For household appliances to be used in this manner, they would have to be completely automated. Sure, I could choose to run my laundry cycle at 8pm rather than 5:30pm, but the convenience factor of doing it when I want to do it is going to trump the pennies they'd give me to wait, every single time.

Now, if all I had to do was dump all my dirty laundry in a hamper, and it automatically sorts it and folds it after it's done washing, now that's something I don't care about anymore and can just let a program decide when it wants to accomplish each step.

View on HN

> Sure, I could choose to run my laundry cycle at 8pm rather than 5:30pm, but the convenience factor of doing it when I want to do it is going to trump the pennies they'd give me to wait, every single time.

However, the heating element in your dryer doesn't have to be run like that. You start the dryer, and it starts tumbling your clothers with the motor, and blowing some air with the fan, but the heating element can turn on and off in coordination with the rest of your house, and you wouldn't even notice.

Also, most of us run a load just before going to bed, and shuffle it to the dryer in the morning.

Do you care if the washer takes a little while before starting up while you're sleeping? I sure don't.

> Also, most of us run a load just before going to bed, and shuffle it to the dryer in the morning.

Not if you care about the longevity of your clothing and mildew in your washer.

I don't know anyone who does this routinely on purpose.

How much mildew is going to build up if it starts an hour or two later? Or sits in washer for a few hours after finish?

Waiting days? Sure... random-internet-answer(s) seem to hover around 24-48 hours before mildew becomes an issue...

So, sitting over night and then maybe a few hours before the dryer starts (Assuming that, it too, would be on a timer) shouldn't be a major issue.

In my personal experience, clothes start smelling funky and 'off' after about 3 hours wet after a wash, and the smell persists even after drying. Only solution is to rewash the entire load.

Also, if you have a front loader, they are extremely prone to growing mildew in the bottom of the rubber gasket. Leaving wet clothes inside makes that much more likely.

White vinegar in the prewash will kill the mildew smell.

White vinegar can also help when washing clothes that tend to bleed color (e.g. Just-bought dark blue jeans). Wash these once with white vinegar and the color should "stabilize".

I buy that stuff by the gallon. If you live in a high humidity area it has so many uses.

I find this depends a lot on where you are. In my house in California, I can leave the clothes in the washer a lot longer. In florida, the washer is already stinking most of the time. Even if I disinfect the washer occasionally with bleach, it still ends up stinking again. I put this down to the general humid environment.

Could be the water quality as well.

Florida water stinks like a swamp right out of the tap.

Do you close the door on the washer? We have front loading washer and leave the door slightly ajar. When it's completely sealed the darkness and humidity are a breeding ground for mold.

If a washing machine waits up to say 30 minutes unless you click the fast button, that's still quite a bit of time shifting in aggregate. Same for home heating/cooling, you might be willing to shift an extra 1-2 degrees if it will save a few dollars a month and you don't need to pay attention. However, if your willing to spend a few extra dollars a month that directly pays for grid storage.

Yes. This only matters for half an hour, once a year, when there isn't enough wind or sunlight to generate electricity. It's OK for a washer to just say no if you try to switch it on in that half hour, and maybe that makes more sense than buying a large battery that only gets used once a year. The timing can be forecast, and the news would warn you the night before.

The US grid already has a lot of storage in hydropower systems. So, I doubt a washing machine would ever need to say no.

Further the once a year useage is going to be drawing a lot of batteries slightly lower at the cost of slightly shorter lifespans not a single bank that's only used once. Plus some emergency back up generators that flip on and use some minimal amount of fuel at hospitals and data centers etc.

PS: One interesting outgrowth from high wind solar production is likely to be fairly accurate models for electricity costs over the next few hours. So, you may be using power sooner if the prediction is a coming price increase.

Is it very warm where you are located? Here in the UK I can sometimes forget washing over night, or 24 hours in the machine (front loader) and not get a problem with smell, any longer and I likely will - and don't worry my wife tells me when it smells off! Never had a problem with mildew in the gasket either - maybe too cold here? Or maybe the weekly hot wash i do keeps the machine clean?

Same here in Melbourne (au), have forgotten clothes in front loader for 24 hours sometimes, and they've been fine. I guess it's either climate, or front loader, or appliance hygiene. Or a combination thereof

You need to bleach your washing machine if clothes are getting funky after three hours.

The solution is straightforward:

Automate the washing, drying and folding of clothing.

Automate cooking. And shopping.

And so on. Like self-driving cars.

Then it can be done while you sleep :)

Cooking and folding clothes aren't going to be automated for a long time. Fine motor control is a hard problem that has resisted automation for decades. GPUs and RNNs don't help.

You need fingertips with lots of nerves, and probably thousands of very nuanced motor control paradigms.

I'd be happy with just laying the clothes flat so they don't wrinkle. That way I can get to it whenever. Especially if they're pressed first.

Buy wrinkle resistant clothes - they can be washed without needing pressing.

No thanks, my current workflow works just fine.

There are demos of robots folding random laundry. They are slow and expensive, but that's the stuff that improves over time.

Cooking has been automated for many people for a long time, all they need to do is open the microwave door.

Sure, actual cooking won't be. However, taking a frozen entrée and heating it could very easily be automated.

Automate sleep too?

As in, the process in the brain? Because if I could turn on 'sleep mode' while maintaining enough consciousness to perform basic tasks/hobbies then several hours later turn off 'sleep mode' to regain full consciousness and feel fully rested then _YES_ sign me up for automated sleep.

Some people call that mode a meeting.

Or make sleep more efficient.

Sleep pods (or smart beds as they'll be more likely to be called if invented any time soon) that repair your body and inject you with nutrients, making you feel as good as new when you wake up, to the point of not needing sleep again for a few days.

Pretty sure you will always need sleep every day for optimal functioning. Unless you have nanobots cleaning things up maybe.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flus...

I could totally use the "making you feel as good as new when you wake up" part, though.

Or one could just get a combo washer-dryer that washes and dries your clothes without any intervention.

Considering this sophistication will probably not be easy to retrofit onto current devices, a combined, space/energy saving device is a given. As long as the clothes are dry and clean when I need them, I don't care at what time during the night the machine did its job.

With some extra cleverness, it could even negotiate very-short-term (hours) futures on energy prices based on current tendencies and knowledge of future house demand.

Energy futures on a "by the minute" basis are great in principle, but they are hampered for consumers by the fact that current billing is flat rate.

Why participate in the future market if one can simply choose to not partipate and get to consume any amount of energy you like at a constant price?

Effectively you'd have built a market with an unlimited option to buy at the monthly-average price. A market like that can't work...

If you embark in the floating price, you'll probably get better rates. The downside, you having to worry about it, is offset by the machines planning their own consumption within the criteria ("I want this dry in the morning") you set.

>Also, most of us run a load just before going to bed, and shuffle it to the dryer in the morning.

I've never met anyone who does this and the only times it happens is on accident.

I live with hard water, so if I did this my clothes would be starchy and uncomfortable to wear. They have to immediately hit the dryer once the wash cycle finishes. Then - unless I want to wear crinkly clothes - straight to the hangers once the dryer finishes.

I routinely do this.

Not to mention the sour smell that clothes get when left wet for too long in the washing machine.

>Also, most of us run a load just before going to bed, and shuffle it to the dryer in the morning.

Have people told you that you smell funny or just acted weird when you are around?

Of course if washing, trying and ironing would be all integrated and automated then one could do that.

Most of us put the last load in the dryer before going to bed, but that load has 6+ hours to dry before anyone notices, so your basic point, for dryers, is still reasonable.

This is a great example of how you should always understand your customer when creating product features.

Knowing the kind of fire a malfunctioning dryer - and washing machine, though less likely - can cause, there is no way I leave either running without someone about and awake in the house.

so you don't iron or fold your clothing? you don't mind it smelling like mildew?

my goodness...

>Also, most of us run a load just before going to bed

I don't do this, but perhaps more relevant, I have never discussed laundry habits with friends, so either a) I am unusually tight lipped about laundry, or b) I have no way to know what "most of us" do, though this seems not to be the norm in apartments I have lived in with shared laundry facilities.

> Also, most of us run a load just before going to bed, and shuffle it to the dryer in the morning.

Current safety advice is to not run washing machines when you're asleep.

I guess it's okay if you have very good, loud, fire alarms.

> but the convenience factor of doing it when I want to do it is going to trump the pennies they'd give me to wait, every single time

I grew up in Switzerland and the cost incentive to running the dishwasher and washer/dryer at night was significant. Many families changed their behavior as a result.

We already put our washing on a timer, when we come down in the morning it's ready to put on the line.

I agree. But at least heating/cooling could work this way. I don't mind whether my apartment or my fridge is a few degrees warmer or colder, but that difference could store a couple of kWh. If you use a water heater with a tank it too can be used in such a way.

Maybe you don't, but most people care---a lot---about the temperature of their dwelling (yes, to the resolution of a degree or so). And your friendly neighborhood microbiologist will be happy to discuss the implications of fridge temperature irregularity.

And your friendly neighborhood electrical engineer will insist on having that discussion before finalizing a design for a fridge controller.

Yes, it's important o keep a fridge in certain temperature bands. But there;s a lot of timing leeway in those bands, and it's exploitable as a form of energy storage.

I have a five year old fridge whose defining features include a compressor that runs pretty much all the time at a lower current draw to reduce overall energy use (and keep it quieter).

An electrical engineer I believe designed that part of the system...

I don't think the microbiologist will object if the fridge is too cold for part of the day... it's not like we're storing the microbiologist's cell cultures.

We already waste a great deal of food. Having it too cold will damage food, as will too hot. Older fridges used a sawtooth cooling pattern (on/off) but newer ones, with fancier motors, have might tighter regulation. I'm sceptical of how much energy can be scavenged.

I'm sure with enough IoT you could delay motor start +/-30s across a region to smooth the tip of a load spike, but it sounds very complicated. How would end users be compensated for such a tiny shift in load? Isn't instaneous power demand a martingale process?

It sounds like it would be easier and cheaper to have a few batteries.

I wasn't suggesting making it so cold as to damage food. I also wasn't arguing against batteries.

I was just generally arguing against the parent proposition as well.

Well, if you're a skeptic as to how much can be saved, you might want to look at the many "smart grid" studies, because this has been a hot topic for a while and is already implemented to a small degree.

If you were suggesting a refrigerator to run the cooling in the night so much so that it'd be able to sustain a safe temperature for many hours while conserving energy in the day, then yes, you were suggesting making it so cold as to damage food - a few degrees difference isn't sufficient to achieve what you want, and if your temperature fluctuates more than 3-4 degrees then the food either gets unsafely warm or gets frozen/damaged.

I wasn't suggesting that, no.

Both of these problems can be solved by shifting the energy storage into a medium other than air: refrigerant. Store the compressed refrigerant in an insulated tank and use as needed. It's no different in principle from storing hot water in an insulated tank. Shift the load off peak.

> Store the compressed refrigerant in an insulated tank and use as needed

Congratulation, you just re-invented the wheel. Do you really fridge builder are that dumb ?

A lot of the power that a fridge consumes is related to the defrost of coils. I don't care when my fridge heats up the coils, so that would be an easy load shift for a fridge that would not change the interior temp one bit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com