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My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

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Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#521

Post by lcall »

Just a related case, with a faucet:

Some months ago, we bought a new kitchen sink faucet, liking the handsfree feature (on/off by waving in front of a sensor). Of 2 possibilities, the salesman pushing for the on w/ a smart controller with wifi, saying we wouldn't ever have to use the wifi, and it was $50 cheaper. And he didn't mention the existence of the branded a/c adapters for the faucet, and misled somewhat about the nature of the warranty (the lifetime part doesn't cover the electronics--those are covered for 5 years which seems reasonable enough I guess).

Turned out that it requires 6 or 8 size D(? large, pricey) battery cells which ran down in ~5 weeks. Due to a bug(?) or design problem, the cold water got stuck in "open" mode when the batteries died, and could not be turned off except by shutting off all cold water to the faucet. Replacing batteries, etc etc didn't help. The manufacturer said yes there was also another bug, due to wifi not being set up, it was constantly probing for a network, and ran down faster. The only way to fix it was to connect to wifi, or get a new controller. They (Moen) were repeatedly very competent and helpful on the phone, understood why I preferred not to connect it to wifi in my case, and sent us a new controller with the fix, under the warranty. The local salesman however, after long discussion and not super-happily, allowed us to get the other sensor model with no smart controller box, and days later, to return the old faucet for the full original price. (Moen provided a return shipping label for the unused replacement controller box.)

We have been happy with the new/simpler sensor model, which seems to have neither of the bugs of the first one (Moen said that in this one, a capacitor saves enough power to turn off the water, in case the batteries die while the water is running). Takes just something like 2 AAA batteries which last a long time, working very nicely.

My wife points out that the the simpler model actually did turn out to be significantly less expensive, and we had to have a plumber come for something else right at the same time so they did the faucet swap then and the total cost difference was about a wash. We were grateful that it turned out well in the end. I would probably buy from Moen again, considering, but would read online more at their site about the product, and listen to the salesman somewhat less.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#522

Post by vel0city »

jmartinpetersen wrote: post #142
christophilus wrote: post #7

I can understand the appeal of most smart devices, but since a dishwasher can’t yet load and unload itself, what is the point of an internet connected dishwasher? You have to have physically loaded it. Why not just push the start button then?

I wish my dishwasher could automaticly start whenver the price of electricity was low. I can manualle delay it by doing simple math in my head and forecasting prices, but it would be easier and more foolproof if I could script it with IFTTT.

Your dishwasher probably uses ~1kWh of energy per cycle. Unless you're running your dishwasher a lot, or you're in an area where the difference per kWh is really massive, you're really not saving that much money.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#523

Post by thiht »

spookthesunset wrote: post #490
EricE wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never connect it to the Internet. Just use a Roku instead of the horrible built in apps. Honestly I'm amazed that so many people actually connect their "smart" TVs to the Internet. No way in hell!

The "smart" stuff on my Sony TV is pretty damn good actually. It has all the major streaming services I use and the remote isn't half bad. It's actually taken over most of the functionality we used the Apple TV for.

Really? I bought a high end Sony Bravia with Android TV and the experience honestly sucks. It’s slow as hell, the sounds are awful, Google pushed fucking ads to the home and the UI is really not very nice looking. There are lots of apps though which is cool.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#524

Post by prewett »

psyc wrote: post #475
ChrisLomont wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So things are now generally much less user friendly than 43 years ago?

Yes. Both more capable and less user friendly. 40 years ago a TV had three physical controls and one input.

Those old TVs had some serious usability issues, though. There were 10 (?) channels selectable by one knob, and then additional channels selected if the main knob was turned to the correct setting ("UHF", if I recall correctly). The master knob tended to be below the additional-frequency knob, though, which seems a little strange. Then there was the challenge of the fine adjustment ring on the UHF selector for tuning (not sure if the master knob had one). And, of course, the more frequently needed coarse adjustment from the (unmentioned) antenna, which seemed like it always needed some hacky tweaking. Including sometimes touching it continuously in order to get a good picture.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#525

Post by alkonaut »

chasd00 wrote: post #501
alkonaut wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that does get you 99% of the way there at least. It does require predicting/assuming the electricity prices though. If they are predictable enough, that's fine. It doesn't quite reach feature parity with actually fetching electricity prices every hour and slowly learning when it's cheapest over many weeks.

what is the difference between 99% and 100% in the cost of electricity though? 1/50th of a cent?

Not sure how much prices can vary over the day, and more importantly how that varies by weekday, season and so on. How much you can make by having an online price service varies with how well you’d be able to “hit” the price dips manually too.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#526

Post by prewett »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #508
brk wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is making dishwashers now?

“Full Self-Washing” is coming soon, just you wait! And check out the new Ridiculous wash cycle! The jokes practically write themselves.

Is the Ridiculous Wash where you put in regular dish soap instead of dishwasher soap and the suds go all over the floor?

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#527

Post by dpark »

vel0city wrote: post #516
dpark wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when HA notices, that the machine has not run in 3 days, but is closed, then it can send a notification to my phone But why? If I haven’t run it in three days, then I don’t need it to run. The only way this might be useful for me would be if HA could magically realize the dishwasher is full and I forgot to run it, but it’s not going to be able to do that. It can’t tell the difference been “I forgot” and “I don’t wa…

Dishwashers and clothes washers will usually have some amount of heating capacity to them, as they will want to at least try and maintain a certain water temperature during their cycle. The units are usually a bit insulated, but overall the water is going to lose a good bit of temperature during the cycle as chances are your dishes and clothes are nowhere near the target water temperature. So you use the hot water li…

That’s reasonable. Internal heaters to make sure you’re washing at 120F or whatever. Still want hot water coming in.

Although there’s also a big push to start using cold water for clothes. Supposedly modern detergents don’t need hot water typically.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#528

Post by anticensor »

amelius wrote: post #398
jancsika wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, it could also get functionality updates This is an important point that owners[1] sometimes miss. For example, if the owner makes a deal to partner with the maker of a particular detergent tab, the owner could create a new feature that only works with those tabs and not regular powder detergent. 1: Owner: the person who owns the firmware being sent over WiFi.

This is why you should never allow a printer to directly connect to the internet.

That might soon be mandatory as an anti-banknote-photocopy measure.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#529

Post by charlieyu1 »

feoren wrote: post #439
fsflover wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why Stallman invented free software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor... .

Problem: People are writing bad software with bugs and dark patterns. Solution: Software development should be the only creative profession in the entire world with no legal protection on their work!? It's insane to me. Absolutely insane. Copyright is not immoral. Almost nobody in this thread would be able to make any money as a software engineer if software were not allowed to make money. And yes, I've heard the arg…

It is more about what should be open and what shouldn’t be. The core system that drives the device, probably doesn’t need to be open. The app that only make API calls to control the device should be open.

Re: My dishwasher won’t start until I let it update its firmware over the WiFi

#530

Post by UncleMeat »

fsflover wrote: post #375
UncleMeat wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I buy a smart heater that connects to some backend using free software and the company shuts off that backend I'm sure as heck not solving that problem by editing the software and reinstalling it to do some new different thing. And I'm a professional software engineer. Free software means that in theory you can modify and maintain the software you run on your machines to your liking (not hardware though, or backen…

If it uses free software, you can reprogram it to connect to your own server (or anyone else's who wants your money). > But this is so incredibly far beyond the capabilities of the enormous majority of people that it might as well not be a thing in the first place. You don't have to be a programmer to benefit from free software. The latter simply removes the monopoly of the software developers and allows alternative…

> You don't have to be a programmer to benefit from free software. The latter simply removes the monopoly of the software developers and allows alternative developers to work for you if you pay them.

And where is this font of developers writing replacements for abandoned free software? We've had decades of GPL software. The number of people who have actually used this lever is incredibly small.

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