They should all get hit with the open box problem from the returns.
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.
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.
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...
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.
If there was any influencer I'd want to know that from it's Louis Rossmann.
Jeff's using his internet fame to reach far more people. I previously thought that Bosch were a good brand (only had a blender and a temperature controlled kettle from them though), but now will avoid them.
Sure it would be nice, but just like all things, not to be pessimistic or fatalistic—the HN rejection of something doesn't practically matter to most companies. I mean, why is it is that Steve Bannon is the loudest voice against technofeudalism today? Why can't we get louder and get other people listening?
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).
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.
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?
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.
> 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?
Safety third.
That sounds draconian, do you have any examples of home insurance policies that do this? Is this common in reality?
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.
>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?
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.
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.
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.Try buy a TV without smart features. You can, but then you got to buy one intended for hotels and pay the market price for products intended for that market.
Easy. Just buy a dumb monitor. Why do you even need the TV tuner?
Also the marginal cost of an app is basically $0, whereas the marginal cost of hardware like buttons and 7-segment displays is >$0, so it's tempting (if you expect to sell a lot of dishwashers) to replace hardware with an app.
But if you have the idea you want internet-connected TV but somehow 'not smart' (not even understanding what it means) but without ads then yeah good luck, they are baked into OS even if manufacturer didn't want them. And there is no such manufacturer I know of.
Although, I have cheap 75" TCL one and the only ads I see in past 2 years are those youtube itself inserts, while using all default apps that came with it (plus VLC for more video formats and generally better player). What other ads areas are there?
> I don't think we should let vendors get away with this stuff.
But he _did_ let the vendor get away with it. That’s exactly what he did. He even spent a significant part of the article anticipating the push back by trying to reason why in his case he felt justified in doing so (because he’s busy, because he couldn’t wait a few days hand washing, because of family constraints), but presumably.. you shouldn’t?
So I don’t get it. It’s precisely the “do as I say, not as I do” that we have this problem. There is an immediate benefit to the saying part, on social media, the social signalling, etc (especially immediate for a YouTuber), but not so much for the doing part.
And I say that as largely a supporter, Jeff Geerling seems to be one of the good guys. Which I guess is why we are where we are?
So here's the thing. It would be unfairly cynical to suggest that Jeff is only doing this to further his own content as a content creator. I think most would agree that Jeff is also frustrated by this and wants to push back. And as someone with influence any impact he can make is undoubtedly a good thing. It's even easier to say nothing at all.
But it is also hard to separate out to what degree the motivation to put in the effort to write an article, produce and edit a video stems from the desire for content and what stems for the desire for real change. It is somewhat telling that he had the time and motivation to produce the video (which is also a ton of work), but not to return the dishwasher?
Real advocacy has to go beyond influencers promoting causes that already align with their target audience. We have to go beyond just saying things on social media in the belief that that is somehow sufficient to "do our bit". Otherwise we can kid ourselves that we're doing good, when are we really, really? Real advocacy requires real change, and that's the hard bit.
I think there may even be an argument that a stance like this can do more damage than good. It may actually normalize the view that it's sufficient to promote on social media but ultimately take no action. There's a danger of furthering a sense of complacency where we want to do the right thing, but where sufficiency in "the right thing" has been normalized down to a grumble and a tweet rather than to actually take real action at any real personal cost.
Alternatively put, if everyone else doesn't do the hard bit, why should I?
Consider real leadership that makes the hard choices and leads by example. You see a friend step up against something at cost to them, and it's that what motivates you to join them. Leading by example is what motivates people.
I think it would have been so much more effective if Jeff returned the dishwasher. People see that personal cost and it _means something_. Otherwise why bother? I mean, that's what Jeff does, right?
And Consumer Reports (which I am a "member") needs to call them out and hard for this.
Since I have a tiny bit of reach online, I figured I'd use it FWIW to maybe impact Bosch's sales by like 0.000001%. Because that's better than 0.000000001% :)
Our current dishwasher is a GE and it does a great job washing dishes, but has developed a few quirks that leads me to believe we are living on borrowed time.
I did try all of the configuration possibilities with regard to DHCP:
dhcp-option=option:ntp-server,132.163.96.1
dhcp-option=option:time-offset,0xFFFF8F80 #(Standard time)
#dhcp-option=option:time-offset,0xFFFF9D90 #(Daylight time)
dhcp-option=option:posix-timezone,'PST8PDT7,M3.2.0/02:00,M11.1.0/02:00'
I've never actually found any IoT device that recognizes or correctly uses these.
I've no idea if the newer GE products are still this bad, but I'll be shopping for "dumb" appliances on the next appliance refresh cycle.
That only works if other options don't have these requirements.
Having recently bought new appliances, they almost all have some features gated behind "the cloud".
Even many exhaust fans (that go above your stove) have wifi now!
I know it would be super easy to return or exchange at Costco. But my spouse likes it, I am pretty certain that any replacement unit is going to have the exact same issue, and it was a pretty good price.
I'm sorry for being a bad consumer!