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LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

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Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#151

Post by callalex »

hamandcheese wrote: post #6

I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a networked washing machine.

Notifications are my main use case. The huge gaping downside is that they removed every dial and most buttons so unless you want a “normal” cycle you have to use an app to select the cycle. It’s neat that there are specific cycles for specific things and all, but not even having a “permanent press” option selectable without an app is incredibly stupid.

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#152

Post by btzs »

efitz wrote: post #150

I have both an LG washer and dryer, about 2 years old I’m unable to connect the dryer to WiFi at all (UniFi). The washer does nothing useful on WiFi. All I want is them to connect to HomeAssistant or HomeKit and send a notification when they finish their cycle. I am super disappointed in LG.

I would suggest using a tasmota smart plug and check energy consumption to determine if program has finished.

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#153

Post by lathiat »

justusthane wrote: post #134
epcoa wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn’t, vendor prefixes are sort of an anachronism. Bit 41 - bit 1 of the first octet is reserved for local (random) use. That and the group bit (40) set to 0 means the second digit of the human readable MAC is 2, 6, A or E, but that’s it.

My bad, thanks for the correction! You still can’t identify a specific device type based on the MAC address though, right?

On the same WiFi network yes you can - it uses the same MAC on the same SSID. Remembers the "random" MAC after the first connection (and if you first connected to the networks before they added MAC randomisation in iOS14, it "remembers" the actual MAC of the device, so you didn't have compatability issues after the iOS14 upgrade).

So you can't use it to track devices between multiple SSIDs including when scanning for networks, but you can use it to persistently identify a device when connected to the same network.

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#154

Post by HPsquared »

e28eta wrote: post #95
HPsquared wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of washing machines remember their previous state when the power goes out. You can use this to your advantage using a smart switch: start the wash cycle, turn off the power straight after. When you turn the power back on at a scheduled time (using the smart switch), the washing machine will pick up where it left off (at the beginning of the cycle). Also a lot of them just have a timer built-in anyway.

Careful about switching large inductive loads on a smart switch, the ones I’d looked at weren’t rated for big inductive loads (like the motor inside a washing machine or a dryer).

Inductive loads are less of a problem for alternating current. (Still a bit of an issue, though).

I was thinking more, turn the switch off within a few seconds of starting the cycle. Usually nothing happens in that time other than the drain pump doing a quick cycle to remove any residual water.

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#155

Post by Uvix »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #89
jstummbillig wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems completely inconsequential

It seems completely inexplicable. I don't care if it's a small percentage of my symmetric gigabit fiber, I only care why they supposedly need it and where it ends up. A phone number or a timestamp is a tiny amount of data. In the quaint olden days, you had to go out of your way to volunteer to be a part of some study to have any aspect of your activity recorded every few seconds 24/7 to be collected and analysed like…

The users did go out of their way to volunteer, by hooking the washing machine up to their network.

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#156

Post by EspadaV9 »

efitz wrote: post #150

I have both an LG washer and dryer, about 2 years old I’m unable to connect the dryer to WiFi at all (UniFi). The washer does nothing useful on WiFi. All I want is them to connect to HomeAssistant or HomeKit and send a notification when they finish their cycle. I am super disappointed in LG.

Like another user mentioned, I'd recommend getting a smart plug. I use the TP Link Tapo plugs with the energy monitoring.

There was a post on Ozbargain that had a better automation than what I was previously using and works really well.

https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/14789545/redir

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#157

Post by makeitdouble »

ajb wrote: post #133
mft_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally with you, except a notification that it's finished would actually be really helpful. It's apparently possible to track a washing machine's progress with a smart switch that monitors power draw; I've got one lying around so might try to implement that soon, to complement my hacky RPi-Ring-doorbell-announcer :)

You can use Bluetooth for that though, and it would probably be cheaper.

Bluetooth requires a paired device and has range issues.

I'd see the internet connected route as useful for anyone in the household to be able to check notification without having to pair all the phones (and then what if you don't want it on a phone), and getting the notification when outside. Now it would better with a home server dealing with the data, but we're so far from that.

In general I see bluetooth as fine for personal wearables (headphones) and not great when a device is shared (bathroom scales, smart plugs, switches etc)

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#158

Post by Aurornis »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #19
monospaced wrote: post #2

> In a follow-up post a day after his initial Tweet, Johnie noted “inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool.” Other LG smart washing machine users showed device data use from their apps. It turns out that these appliances more typically use less than 1MB per day.

Other users having low data usage doesn't prove they also have low usage? Are people so uncomfortable saying "we don't know" that they use such loose reasoning to "get the answer"? I'll re-read the article/tweets, maybe I missed something.

> Other users having low data usage doesn't prove they also have low usage?

The follow-up Tweet is from the same person who reported the initial issue.

This happens a lot: Devices get a new IP address but some tool has an internal database that remembers the old device at that address. It then shows stats for the new device at that IP address but reports it as coming from whatever it was initially recognized as.

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#159

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

kragen wrote: post #149
jacquesm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? It shouldn't be hogging bandwidth like this, that's a failure by itself regardless of whether there another failure state at play. Also, I'd have to question any washing machine that can generate 'massive amounts of error logs'. 3.7 G / Day is an insane amount of data.

a program running on a 480 megahertz microcontroller can quite reasonably crash a million times a second; even a single 80-character error log line would be 80 megabytes per second or 7 terabytes per day. and it would be reasonable to record more telemetry from a crash than a single line

maybe it's the error logging that crashed and then triggers ...

Re: LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day

#160

Post by lostlogin »

jwalton wrote: post #146
jstummbillig wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems completely inconsequential

War and Peace is 3mb as uncompressed plaintext[1]. 1mb a day is a lot. 1: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2600

Would you prefer to read War and Peace, or the (shorter) washing machine logs?

It’s touch and go for me. The variables names in washing machine code would likely have be less easily confused.

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