Okay this sounds all very reasonable, but how do you know when your washing machine is finished, when it's not connected to the cloud and you won't get notified in your app? It sure is not an easy thing and the cloud helps very much here
If I buy something new like this and have a few choices, I intentionally pick the one with as few smart features as possible.
Where I went to college, our dorms had (free) shared washing machines. This was "pre cloud", but wifi was throughout. One student rugged up a hall-effect sensor and attached it to each power cable. It could detect if the washers and driers were on. It sent this info to a specific website that the students could monitor to see if there were any available washers or driers.
It actually is. Fixed length cycles haven't been a thing for many years now - modern washing machines adjust the washing cycle length by the weight of the laundry and its behavior during spin-drying, both its vibration behavior aka weight distribution (that can have multiple adjustment cycles to achieve reasonably even distribution) and how much water it loses - when no more water comes out during spinning, it will cut the cycle short to save energy.
If it says (e.g.) 43 minutes, but sometimes it takes 40 and sometimes 49 or 53, set your timer for 60 minutes and get on with life. Your laundry sitting for 17 or 7 minutes isn't the end of the world. If your timer goes off and it's still not done, set it for another 20 and do something else.
Of all the things to fill your head with worry and annoyance with, laundry is near the bottom of the list for me.
I guess dishwasher years are like dog years. At least it definitely behaves like a teenager at 2 years old, finishing when it wants to finish. Estimates be damned.
I'm already mentally replacing "cloud" with "clown" anyway, to the point I have to stop myself from accidentally saying "clown computing" out loud.
1. Check back in an hour (like my (grand)mother did—and she managed to do laundry without Wifi).
2. Or: have a washer that beeps.
3. Or: set a countdown kitchen timer (or a timer on my phone) that will beep if my washer does not have a washer.
There are complicated situations in life: doing laundry is not one of them.
In all seriousness, I think never has there been a better time to educate people on the fundamental philosophy of computing freedom, and I usually start with Eben Moglen and RMS's talks with people.
I don't know how much of this is generational, or how much of this is corporate sell out, or maybe even sockpuppetry for consensus cracking and other psyop techniques, but relearning the lessons of early computing (such as being able to do things offline, locally, as a core part of a functioning decentralized system), seems highly in order.
If it is serious, you could always set a timer.