This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
A lot of the response I've seen to this post has been "this was unnecessarily complicated".
This makes me incredibly sad.
Who the hell is reading a tinkerer blog and complaining about an elaborate hack?
It's like going to a book club and complaining the story isn't boring enough.
I love this kind of explorative reverse engineering bodge job stuff the best of any kind of engineering tbh
I was bracing myself for some level of absurdity after this disclaimer.
Instead it seemed to be pretty reasonably complicated. They didn't flash some custom firmware or even mess with the hardware at all.
Sure, it is complicated, but in terms of hacks it seems to be par for the course.
I've seen a comment complaining about too much oil on the recipe for... chilli crisp oil. Idiots are everywhere.
TIL washers now have WiFi connectivity. Inching ever closer to the dystopic cyberpunk era where you really can hack everything in sight.
Only a few more years until I can overclock my couch!
I overclocked my clock and now I'm never late!
You can get smart couches right now.
Yes, but a couch doesn't stop functioning as a couch if the smart functions stop working.
Neither does a smart washing machine.
If the motherboard takes a shit? A washing machine will absolutely stop functioning entirely. A couch is still a couch.
That could happen to the washing machine whether it's "smart" or not.
A proper older washing machine doesn't have a motherboard.
Yes it does
And there's my point. A couch is still a couch, smart features or not.
And a washing machine is still a washing machine, smart features or not. Every washing machine is going to have a controller board that can break.
I guess you'll need to go back at least 40 years. Even so, if the belt or motor breaks then the washing machine doesn't work either.
Well sure, but my original point was that a "smart" couch still functions perfectly fine as a couch with or without its "smart" features.
Cory Doctorow's 'Unauthorized Bread' is about exactly that scenario.
That sounds like a great read, thanks for the information
I saw this when I had to get new machines 7-8 years ago. However they were an extra like $300 for each machine. wtf.
I would kill for some sort of audio out or usb, but even better would be Zigbee/z-wave/thread, and you can do it for less than $20 in parts.
Now that Matter/Thread has standard profiles for laundry machines and has a chance of building interoperability, I hope my next machines will, for a reasonable cost and no cloud requirement
Cool. Would love to dee this done for all the "Smart" appliances.
If you just want to know when the clothes are dry, there's an easier way that keeps you in full control: put a ct clamp on the power cord. Doubles as energy monitoring. You can then block that crappy wifi spying system off altogether.
Personally, I use the very technical method of listening for the buzzer to go off…
I hate that everything has WiFi for no reason…
I was thinking a vibration sensor connected to home assistant, but that would work too.
Or just a smart outlet that can track power consumption. Plenty of options that work locally with HA.
But I'd definitely fire up the 3D printer and grab an ESP chip if I was doing this at home.
Thats a bad idea because of power draw overload during motor startups.
You just have to use an outlet rated for the max load.
As far as the esp chip goes, I was meaning more along the lines of using a sensor of some sort.
You have to use an outlet capable of handling the max instantaneous load. That way you don't end up welding the relay in the on position.
As an example, my window air conditioner takes 600 watts to run, which is perfectly fine. But during startup, it takes 1800 watts. The plug i have can handle that quick spike, but its really not designed for it.
Right, the max instantaneous load is the max load I was speaking of.
Oh yeah, as long as it can handle that, then you're fine.
I feel like a lot of people wouldn't necessarily know the difference and might end up starting a fire or something without meaning to.
Just listen for the moaning to stop
i like it
Interesting read, really like their writing style.
I've got one coming and really can't figure out any meaningful benefit to having the WiFi enabled
Am old, don't get any of this. 4-5 hour dry times? Did I read that wrong? Mine does a load in 50 minutes, tops. The end of the cycle is fairly easy to figure, since you set the minutes yourself.
Every dryer I've ever had, you also set the time for it... But it still did whatever the fuck it wanted. Set it to 50 minutes? It takes 2 hours. And none of them have even been modern "smart" devices.
That's weird! I've had a dozen dryers over the years, all timed exactly as they said.
I suspect it's because they had moisture sensors so it would extend the dry time if it was still wet inside beyond a preset minimum of moisture. Most laundrymats this hasn't been an issue. The ones in my apartment are, tho. The washer runs exactly for 25 minutes. The dryer says it will run 45 minutes, but when I come back an hour later it's still going and now the timer says it has 20 minutes left.
This is exactly my experience. I was super confused by the timer on the dryer. Then I called support and they said it was normal for where I live and where the machine sits in the house. Air too humid and spot less than ideal for moisture to be taken away from the machine in a timely fashion.
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