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Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

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Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#51
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be as efficient but it won’t need replacement every 7 years. That alone makes up for it. Plus it’s probably easy to repair. My Speed Queen is made of like 7 parts. Most people will have gone through 3 or 4 machines by the time mine is dead.

Most washing machines will use more $ in energy in their lifespan than they cost to buy. That means it is usually worth replacing an old but working one with an energy efficient one merely for the energy savings. A modern EU machine will wash a large (10kg) load of clothes for 0.5 kwh of energy and 50 liters of water (13 gallons). An old 1980's machine might use 4.5 kwh of electricity, and 180 liters of water.

I’m sure it’s just an example but being european I am surprised at the 10kg load. Most people I know hover around ~5-7 kg max capacity for their washing machines. They’re usually placed in bathrooms or kitchens since not a lot of people have space for a separate washing machine room since also not a lot of people have dryers in the EU (at least they’re not standard, they’re considered extra).

Not your point but just adding my two eurocents

Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d pay more for NO firmware in my washing machine. This is beyond my desire to just keep things simple. What is the point of washing machine you can control remotely? You have to put clothes in at the start and take them out at the end. It offers no convenience.

The only thing I could agree with is if it started at at time when the spot-price of electricity was low.

That is an interesting idea. I guess you could probably set that up somehow. Although I’m not sure if you can necessarily access that data live from your electricity company. I imagine you could probably just accomplish the same thing by running at 3am every night.

Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d pay more for NO firmware in my washing machine. This is beyond my desire to just keep things simple. What is the point of washing machine you can control remotely? You have to put clothes in at the start and take them out at the end. It offers no convenience.

The only thing I could agree with is if it started at at time when the spot-price of electricity was low.

I’ve thought the same. But quite anti-social for apartment dwellers

Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#56

Great hack, but I’m sure any engineer worth their salt winces at the thought of a machine in their home roundtripping through far away 3rd party servers (I guess they’re the manufacturer’s, but if it’s hardware I own in my house those servers are 3rd party to me) just to notify them of a numerical value when they’re sitting literally 10 meters away (I live in the countryside and experience internet interruptions not…

Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=migRN4P1wGI. Tape on a thing that gets activated by dumb washing machine LEDs and notifies your phone without any third-party server. Really cool stuff!

I thought this article would be along those lines except more sophisticated (OCR to read remaining time? sure why not!) and was slightly disappointed

Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d pay more for NO firmware in my washing machine. This is beyond my desire to just keep things simple. What is the point of washing machine you can control remotely? You have to put clothes in at the start and take them out at the end. It offers no convenience.

I disagree. I would like a machine that I could start when I want, I don't like when I start a load before leaving the day then having it sit in the damp until I get home to put it in the dryer. I would prefer to be able to start it an hour before I was going home so it would be ready for transfer to the dryer then. I also would like phone notifications, it is sort of in a corner of the basement so I don't hear the a…

A mechanical controlled washing machine with a mechanical timer on the plug would, reliably, achieve the same thing. no need for networks and external servers. A timed controlled smart plug, with current monitoring, would be able to achieve the IOT aspect of the problem.

Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#58

Great hack, but I’m sure any engineer worth their salt winces at the thought of a machine in their home roundtripping through far away 3rd party servers (I guess they’re the manufacturer’s, but if it’s hardware I own in my house those servers are 3rd party to me) just to notify them of a numerical value when they’re sitting literally 10 meters away (I live in the countryside and experience internet interruptions not…

I’d pay more for NO firmware in my washing machine. This is beyond my desire to just keep things simple. What is the point of washing machine you can control remotely? You have to put clothes in at the start and take them out at the end. It offers no convenience.

I'm also in favor of simplicity, but I think there is an increase in reliability from a microcontroller-based system over one built from discrete logic gates, a mechanical timer, or electromechanical relays. I get that you might not want updatable firmware or might not want communications off the board, but you probably do want a microcontroller-based (with the associated firmware) machine.

Re: Displaying My Washing Machine's Remaining Time with Curl, Jq, and Pizauth

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I would like a machine that I could start when I want, I don't like when I start a load before leaving the day then having it sit in the damp until I get home to put it in the dryer. I would prefer to be able to start it an hour before I was going home so it would be ready for transfer to the dryer then. I also would like phone notifications, it is sort of in a corner of the basement so I don't hear the a…

A mechanical controlled washing machine with a mechanical timer on the plug would, reliably, achieve the same thing. no need for networks and external servers. A timed controlled smart plug, with current monitoring, would be able to achieve the IOT aspect of the problem.

It would need to be a very specific kind of washing machine (that hopefully probably exists) to make your idea work.

A fully analog/mechanical washing machine is just a big mechanical timer controlled relay behind the knob like a toaster oven. If you set it without power, it just runs through the timer without doing anything.

The machine would need to have a timer mechanism that is turned by an electric clock motor, not a mechanical spring with gears etc.

Or you could possibly set up an electric actuator that blocks the knob from turning. Then trigger both the power-on relay and the actuator retraction to do both at the same time.

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