Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

jeffgeerling.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 682 posts

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#351

Post by zargon »

onewheeltom wrote: post #207
theturtletalks wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never buy anything Bosch again after reading this thread. What other reason could Bosch have for hiding this functionality behind a website and user account if not to monetize it down the line or worse, bring more of the functionality behind a paywall. We already saw what happened with HP charging to print and even the recent Chromecast outage where something that should be handled locally is pinging back to G…

My relatively new Bosch dishwasher has real buttons and an LED display. No wifi required

Looks like we got lucky. My unit is a couple years old and has physical buttons, a display, and no wifi. It's been discontinued. Looking at Bosch's site now, there are no models without wifi. The cheap ones (mine was in the "300 series") now lack a display, have touch buttons and require wifi.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#353

Post by floating-io »

colechristensen wrote: post #329
i2shar wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just use Bluetooth? I'd be suspicious if the Dishwasher app requested permission to access the phone's microphone

You can implement an audio modem with much dumber hardware and it would be cheaper and less vulnerable to nonsense, especially if all you're sending is a few bytes. Then you also don't need to do FCC certification. Seriously bitbanging an audio modem to broadcast error codes from a $0.20 BOM microcontroller and a little buzzer speaker would be a fun project to give to a summer intern. (If anyone wants to believe a hi…

If your hardware has a clock >32Khz, you need FCC certification. It doesn't matter if it deliberately uses radio or not, last I checked.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#354

Post by darkwater »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #258
Nursie wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this just an american thing/model? I have a Bosch Series 6 dishwasher here in Australia. It has physical buttons for all the stuff he mentions - Machine Care (self-cleaning), HalfLoad, Eco, and Delay start. I did connect it to wifi which allows me to ... do the same stuff from their app. It's next to useless in my use pattern of "load the dishwasher, run the dishwasher". Literally all it adds is the ability to mor…

The previous generation of Bosch dishwashers in the US were WiFi free. The current generation went through a round of cost cutting and added WiFi bullshit to everything. No idea what the state is of their appliances sold in other markets. As far as I can tell Electrolux is the only manufacturer selling "dumb" laundry kit in the US these days… which is probably part of why everyone's favorite LG shills (Yale Appliance…

> The current generation went through a round of cost cutting and added WiFi bullshit to everything

I'm no dishwasher expert and I guess they did their homework but over a period of 10 years, how can be cheaper to remove the local functionality, add a wifi chip, redo the manuals, and pay for the datacenter costs?

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#355

Post by szszrk »

Svip wrote: post #326
dorfsmay wrote: post #131

Bosch! I ran into the same situation. I specifically told the salesperson I didn't want wifi, and they told me it's only if you want it to operate from your phone. I was done installing it and got rid of the packaging by the time I read that it needs to use their website for some functions. Beside the fact that I doubt the store would take it back after using it for a week or two and havi go no packaging, I had no ti…

These days, Bosch is wholly owned by Siemens. And their appliances are basically the same. Except Bosch is now their experimental branch, where they try out ideas for products. Only those that are successful become Siemens products. So uhm, just buy a Siemens dishwasher, it's unlikely to have an app requirement.

That's completely the other way around and soothsaying :) BSH is a separate entity created 60 years ago by both companies but now fully owned by Bosch.

Bosch and Siemens had a joint venture since like 1960's. Around a decade ago Siemens sold out their BSH part of the company to Bosch completely and Bosch still makes some equipment under that brand. Yet still Siemens exist and is completely independent company.

Such joint ventures were not unlikely events for companies in that space in Europe. Siemens had parts of the company separated more often. Nokia Siemens Networks is kind of big (they ditched the Siemens name a decade ago), Nokia Siemens had briefly been know for cell phones for instance, Fujitsu Siemens did IT Enterprise hardware and software, PDAs and similar (here Fujitsu also took over and ditched Siemens part of the name).

Your buying advice ain't better than the guy's that sold that dishwasher to Jeff.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#356

Post by tchalla »

onewheeltom wrote: post #207
theturtletalks wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never buy anything Bosch again after reading this thread. What other reason could Bosch have for hiding this functionality behind a website and user account if not to monetize it down the line or worse, bring more of the functionality behind a paywall. We already saw what happened with HP charging to print and even the recent Chromecast outage where something that should be handled locally is pinging back to G…

My relatively new Bosch dishwasher has real buttons and an LED display. No wifi required

You could have really helped everyone here by simply posting the model number in your original message itself.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#357

Post by avidiax »

udev4096 wrote: post #307

Do VLANs really provide total isolation? Are there any attacks that still work for breaking out of a VLAN? Just like there is always a way to break out of a sandbox?

It depends on how the VLAN tagging is applied.

If the rule is that everything from a 2nd SSID has the VLAN applied, that's pretty secure.

If the rule is that things with a particular MAC address have the VLAN applied, that depends on the device not spoofing another MAC address.

And if your rule is that already tagged traffic is left as-is, then a device can tag its own traffic with another VLAN.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#358

Post by hyperman1 »

ano-ther wrote: post #144
dorfsmay wrote: post #131

Bosch! I ran into the same situation. I specifically told the salesperson I didn't want wifi, and they told me it's only if you want it to operate from your phone. I was done installing it and got rid of the packaging by the time I read that it needs to use their website for some functions. Beside the fact that I doubt the store would take it back after using it for a week or two and havi go no packaging, I had no ti…

Oh yes. Got an e-bike with a Bosch controller. Have to click away the app advertisement every time before I can use the bike. And the app requires registration. I have the strong suspicion that as soon as I do that, the bike will only work with my phone and start locking out my family members from using it.

My bosch ebike controller is a very lousy timekeeper, and the only way to set the clock is with an app.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#359

Post by tchalla »

sebazzz wrote: post #298
Nursie wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this just an american thing/model? I have a Bosch Series 6 dishwasher here in Australia. It has physical buttons for all the stuff he mentions - Machine Care (self-cleaning), HalfLoad, Eco, and Delay start. I did connect it to wifi which allows me to ... do the same stuff from their app. It's next to useless in my use pattern of "load the dishwasher, run the dishwasher". Literally all it adds is the ability to mor…

> Literally all it adds is the ability to more easily set the machine to run later, which I don't care about. Funny, that is a single physical button on my Siemens dishwasher.

Bosch, and Siemens are all part of the same group, BSH Hausgeräte.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#360

Post by tempay »

mmooss wrote: post #339
UnlockedSecrets wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of a threat-risk analysis, the need of a physical microphone nearby i imagine more than makes up for the risk of an adversary knowing your water quality and electrical consumption as measured by your washer in almost everyones lives atleast..

It also indicates when you are home or out, and likely an estimate of how many people live there. It could collect more data. Those pieces of data are combined with others, to form a full picture. This device doesn't need to collect it all itself. Survellance of private citizens is arguably the foundation of the very dangerous problems in societies around the world, taking away freedom, health, peace, and for most, p…

I think you might have missed OPs point being about acoustically sending data rather than using bluetooth/WiFi.

If someone is close enough to your home to listen to your washing machine (or more likely, inside) they can probably hear/see you more directly.

Post reply on HN