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.
- 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.
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.
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.
None of which would happen because then "the product" would stop letting the exploitation happen.
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 :)
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.
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 ...
Siri set a timer for *looks at washer screen* minutes
And having written that out, now I want a notification from my dryer when it’s not making progress as fast as it expects…
Can confirm, it's what I do. I can even detect which part of the cycle it is in using plain Home Assistant template sensors.
It's crude but it works. Detecting washing vs not is trivial, but I went the extra mile, looking at the power history and analysed the thing visually to get the general profile of each part, taking into account peaks, throughs, noise to have some unambiguous rules. Some are wrong if taken in isolation but taking the order of priority into account, flattening the result with if/elif in a single state sensor it becomes correct. That strategy is also very easy to debug visually with a entity history list in the dashboard.
I could probably also detect error states (which I had a few, like filter clogged with lint preventing water drain) as in this case the panel stays lit with the error code basically forever VS a normal cycle has it lit but ultimately it shuts down to deeper sleep states once it's done.
I really enjoy making dumb devices smart, it's a nice decoupling too and means I can just change e.g washing machine if it dies, adjust a few values below, and be all the merrier.
(nixos config, but it's a 1:1 to YAML and you get the idea)
services.home-assistant = {
#...
config = {
#...
template = [
# washing machine
# 5-6W: on (idle, panel lit)
# 4-5W: off (sleep after on, panel unlit)
# 0.1-1W: off (deep sleep)
# 2100-2200W: water heating
# noisy 8-100W, trough 10W: washing
# ramp-up 15-500W, plateau 300-500W, noisy 100W: spin dry
# 1300-1500W, trough 40W-150W: tumble dry
# 7.5-8W 240s, peak 95-105W, 20-25W 30s: cooldown
{
sensor = [
{
name = "washing_machine_power";
unit_of_measurement = "W";
state_class = "measurement";
state = "{{ states('sensor.shellyplusplugs_80646fc7bb4c_switch_0_power') }}";
}
{
name = "washing_machine_state";
state = ''
{% if is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_heating', 'on') %}
heating
{% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_drying', 'on') %}
drying
{% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_spinning', 'on') %}
spinning
{% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_cooling', 'on') %}
cooling
{% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_washing', 'on') %}
washing
{% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_idle', 'on') %}
idle
{% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_sleeping', 'on') %}
sleeping
{% elif states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | float(default=0) < 0.01 %}
off
{% endif %}
'';
}
];
binary_sensor = [
{
name = "washing_machine_active";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 30 }}
'';
delay_on = { minutes = 2; };
delay_off = { minutes = 2; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_heating";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 1900 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 5; };
delay_off = { seconds = 10; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_drying";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 1000 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) < 1600 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 5; };
delay_off = { seconds = 120; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_washing";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 30 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) < 150 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 120; };
delay_off = { seconds = 45; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_spinning";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 150 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) < 500 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 5; };
delay_off = { seconds = 5; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_cooling";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 6 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) < 30 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 90; };
delay_off = { seconds = 60; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_idle";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 1 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) < 6 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 1; };
delay_off = { seconds = 1; };
}
{
name = "washing_machine_sleeping";
state = ''
{{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | float(default=0) > 0.01 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) < 1 }}
'';
delay_on = { seconds = 1; };
delay_off = { seconds = 1; };
}
];
}
];Now is time to add "flamethrower_mode", lock online and send mail offering the regain_access_to_your_precious_cozy_pajamas code for a fair fee, and became the hidden kings of the undieworld with our "pay_per_brief" program. Muahahah!
Yes, it's not hard to set an alarm, except the timing on the washing machine is unreliable (I've lost count of how many times I've set an alarn with a few minutes extra and still had to wait longer.) It would just be nice to have a little notification - making that chore 1% pleasanter. :)
Fast fourier transform on the audio would give you volume for each frequency range. That probably requires some DIY hardware & programming.
But a power metering plug would be a cheap off-the-shelf solution. Find the ones pre-flashed with ESPhome for ~$15-20, find thresholds for ON/OFF with a bit of trial and error, and you're done.
I have one in my kitchen, near the laundry room, and one in my home office. When things beep in that area, the one in the office says "Beep, beep." (I could have it do other stuff, but this was simple.)
It works for laundry. And the dishwasher. And the Instant Pot. And any other beepin' thing. It's just a remote beep detector.
(And if it detects beeping for 2 or more minutes, it notifies my phone, since that presumably means that my house is on fire.)
You can exfiltrate encryption keys if you can monitor power usage.
https://www.securityweek.com/platypus-hackers-can-obtain-cry...
Someone might be able to do that if they're monitoring power usage directly on the CPU with >microsecond precision for an extended period of time, not with a power metering plug that gives a fairly inaccurate reading at the wall every second or two, after having gone through the power supply transformers, rectifiers, capacitors, and containing noise from every other component in your device.
Simple as that, no wireless components required. I simply leave the door open when the machine isn't running.
I'd see the internet connected route as useful for anyone in the household to be able to check notification without having to pair all the phones (and then what if you don't want it on a phone), and getting the notification when outside. Now it would better with a home server dealing with the data, but we're so far from that.
In general I see bluetooth as fine for personal wearables (headphones) and not great when a device is shared (bathroom scales, smart plugs, switches etc)
n.b. it's pretty new albeit cheap generic Midea front loader
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.
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.
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!
I'm not so into that, but I know people who buy connected domestic things for that very reason.
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.
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.
It doesn't work great, I'd much prefer a direct API to send a notification when the machine says it's actually finished.
“Hey, it’s been a year since you replaced your filters.”