And I fear that there will be no device manufacturers in the same price range left that don't include this feature. Similar to how Smart TV's are cheaper than dumb displays of identical specs.
The only sustainable ways for this to work is:
A) for the data for LG to collect to be worth what it has to pay to the providers. Aside from hopefully unlikely things like LG collecting audio and visual from hidden devices on the appliance, What the hell could anyone collect from a dryer that makes it worth it to pay for a cellular connection to your dryer? Is when and how much I use a dryer worth $30/month on a 2 year contract, for example?
B) for LG to charge you a subscription to use your dryer. People won't do this dumb shit for a dryer unless the dryer is not sold to them, but rented for like $30/month--with free installation. Even then, if the monthly cost is over a certain threshold over me going down to the laundromat and putting quarters in machines there, people won't do it--last time I did laundry at laundromat recently it was $4.25 to wash and effectively $5 to fully dry and that doesn't include soap and dryer sheets.
Now if you throw in a bundled detergent and fabric softener and dryer sheet subscription on top of it, and a free service if anything goes wrong ... it might work. And then ... maybe it is worth it?
$55/mo for a free dryer and all-you-can-eat soap, softener, and sheets--brand of your choice. Like commercial copiers/toner--well, imagine if it was "pay per load".
I mean we're probably going down the road of--in a few years or a deacde--manufacturers being so cheap and the middle-class-eviscerated consumers being so disempowered and poor that it ends up being you have to replace the dryer every 2 years anyway.
This is far more difficult to achieve than you might think, and incredibly illegal.
The contract they negociate with the carrier will probably be closer to $3/drier/year.
Then you'll get local shops that sell the machines painted in 2-3 layers of faraday paint (or apply some sort of cage, or solder out the antenna, etc). Or perhaps just like in the old console hardmod days everyone will know someone that can "mod" your dryer so it stops being dumb and just dries your clothes.
I would just snip off the antenna or remove the SIM, but if I can think of that, so can the manufacturers.
My sim "card" today is just an email already.
BTW does anybody know of any pointers to community projects that are making hardware for this type of thing? I've got it on my long term todo list to create a replacement board for a washer with a "bad control board", but wouldn't want to waste the effort if there are already projects doing this.
I could imagine a little microcontroller and say 10 relays that can control the pump, motor, valves, etc. Then you sell it together with instructions which specify how to program in which output does which function.
You could sell it to people who want to "IoT" their machines for cheap, to people who have a dead control board, and people who want to customize their appliances (eg. I need a custom wash cycle for washing extra dirty clothes).
I don't know if you'd even 10 relays. Most appliances have been cost-reduced into like two motors, a heater, and one or two actuators. Perhaps newer models with steam cleaning etc have reversed that trend.
Control side, I'm thinking of an AVR + ESP32. The AVR for reliably controlling the motors with the sensors, eg if the water is full, turn the water off. True safety stuff like overheat switches obviously stays inline though.
One of the more complex details is newer appliances have moved to brushless motors for efficiency. A three phase motor driver is straightforward, but figuring out what design parameters will be reasonably generic to serve the most appliances is some research.
The least generic parts seem to be fitting in with the existing user-input buttons, and managing the complexity of programming many different models for non-engineer users. The kind of people that are comfortable taking apart appliances generally have less patience for programming computers.
Of course if any specific model became popular enough someone could fab a dedicated control board that fit in the right spot, or at least had matching aesthetics.
Don't worry, the rich will still be able to build faraday cage homes...