I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by tchalla » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:30 AM UTC

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.

It’s there other way around. Robert Bosch acquired the stake in Siemens. So Bosch owns Siemens.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140923104028/http://www.rttnew...

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

#362

Post by Nursie » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:32 AM UTC

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.

Sure, there's one on my Bosch too. But I'm damned if I know how to set it to (for instance) turn on at 7am by using the buttons on the machine. There's probably a way involving multiple button presses. The app does that easily.

But as I said before - not really something I care about either way.

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

#363

Post by nkrisc » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:34 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #350

nkrisc wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... they didn't do that. There is no paywall. Where I live internet access isn’t provided for free.

Where I live housing isn’t provided for free; are all dishwashers paywalled? Y’all are doing acrobatics to twist the definition of a very common and clear word.

My dishwasher wasn’t free either.

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

#364

Post by agilob » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:38 AM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #78

klipklop wrote: post #56

I feel Jeff should have bit the bullet and just returned it. I know it's a waste of time, but these products have to be rejected at retail. Retailers will eventually get tired of the extra support burden and demand manufacturers drop stuff like this. They should all get hit with the open box problem from the returns.

I'd love to take a stance like that, but the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation, and I have quite limited time for my home maintenance + improvement projects as it is (my bench currently has a new faucet set to fix the leaky bathroom faucet, as well as an exhaust fan to fix the broken one in our bathroom... and those are just the things that are currently broken , not the dozen…

>If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours

>Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher.

So you'd rather waste more time, probably days or weeks, on a hack where Bosch can change implementation anytime, than return it?

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

#365

Post by LocalH » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:39 AM UTC

necovek wrote: post #313

Larrikin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I use Home Assistant to run my dish washer, charge my electric car, start my washing machine, etc based on the capacity of my solar array's battery and the fluctuation of electricity prices day to day to pay the least amount of money without software connectivity? All of this is possible today with the right hardware. It does NOT need cloud connectivity and all of these devices should be able to communicate lo…

I agree that's the goal we as a community should steer to. But on how we do that, my opinion seems to differ. I postulate that it's hard (expensive) to do what you suggest: finding people to build that for every customer, while not increasing support costs is tricky today. Just ensuring your personal computing device (a phone, laptop or server running home assistant) can see and talk to your device is a hard problem…

The "software development community" isn't going to do shit, quite frankly, as long as bean counters rule the world. The businesses will keep hardening their equipment (or paying someone to do it poorly), and they'll threaten to sue anyone who attempts to free the hardware.

Some things that are already wildly out of control cannot be fixed from within. We can only hope that regulation and government influence could stop the waterfall. Or, a good old fashioned tea party (if that would even have the slightest effect nowadays).

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

#366

Post by gryfft » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:52 AM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #330

gryfft wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me like the overhead it would add would way outweigh the benefit for the use case. I wouldn't want to wait an extra 10 seconds for the audio to finish transmitting every time just to prevent nonexistent spies in my kitchen from listening in.

The data/time overhead would be negligible. Engineering overhead to implement it on the other hand, perhaps not.

> The data/time overhead would be negligible.

Doubling or tripling the amount of data sent would be negligible over a wire, but an audio protocol won't be as snappy. Then there's the matter of trust/decryption. How are those keys being kept safe? What happens if I lose access?

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

#367

Post by vladvasiliu » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:53 AM UTC

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…

This is likely a model number related issue. I have a Siemens, which, as I understand it, is a Bosch with different styling, since none of these brands actually make the appliances, they're just lending their brand to a separate manufacturer (which is still in Germany FWIW). It also has the "home connect" app.

I have none of these issues. I have a dedicated button for delayed start on the front of the dishwasher. Dedicated "machine care" button. Not sure what the "rinse cycle" is, so I don't know if it has it, but there's a special rinsing-related button on the front that does something that prolongs the cycle. It also has a dedicated "half load" button. It has buttons for every "useful" cycle, like "eco" which is automatically selected when I turn it on. It's also able to go to a menu of sorts where I can configure water hardness, the quantity of rinsing liquid I want (separately from the hardness setting) and some other things I forgot.

The machine was bought new a little less than two years ago and does have the wifi and bluetooth and whatnot. It's also the only appliance I know which supports 5 GHz wifi. The manual also tries to get you to install the app, but it's not needed.

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

#368

Post by dns_snek » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:56 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #191

geerlingguy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to take a stance like that, but the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation, and I have quite limited time for my home maintenance + improvement projects as it is (my bench currently has a new faucet set to fix the leaky bathroom faucet, as well as an exhaust fan to fix the broken one in our bathroom... and those are just the things that are currently broken , not the dozen…

Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did.

> will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did.

That sounds draconian, do you have any examples of home insurance policies that do this? Is this common in reality?

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

#369

Post by sethammons » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:04 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #335

kube-system wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but: 1. there's probably no evidence of it 2. the workers at the store will deny it 3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is 4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a vali…

Most retailers just have a standard return policy, it's a good idea to choose where you purchase a major appliance where you know the return policy. For Costco it's 90 days for a major appliance, you don't have to justify yourself as to why. Some stores have terrible return policies, some have good enough policies.

I've seen snap together flooring, the kind that does not require nails, returned to Costco full of nails. I thought that was incredibly wrong but they took it back

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

#370

Post by TuringTest » Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 8:04 AM UTC

schobi wrote: post #338

tzs wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had sort of the opposite situation. I needed a new washer and all the top rated ones according to Consumer Reports included WiFi. I asked at Home Depot if the one I was thinking of getting, an LG WM3400CW, required me to actually use the WiFi and they said no. I used it for a few weeks without ever even trying to set up WiFi and everything was fine. Then I found at that when you set up an LG washer for WiFi you can…

Wouldn't it be great if a universal standard existed for devices sending their diagnosis via audio? If there is a microcontroller and a beeper in there anyway, at only the extra cost of internal memory? Instead of a modem-type modulation and a speaker, make use of the bare minimum piezo beepers and send something that is universally understood? All of that without FCC, no extra hardware cost, no backchannel und thus…

> Yea - I know. Works much better to upsell "wifi enabled"

A good marketer could give a catchy name to sell the advantages of that system too. Top of my head I can think of "near-fi", but certainly could be done better.