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I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

jeffgeerling.com

551–560 of 682 posts

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

#551

One thing I've learned when buying a full set of appliances couple of years ago: don't read consumer reports or reviews by randos on the internet -- instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers. They have actual hard data on the types and frequency of problems across brands and models. But back to the main theme of the article: hell to the no was my initial attitude, and…

Where can you find these service/warranty reports?

It's been a while, so these may be out of date:

- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide

- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...

- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...

Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.

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

#552
post #105

One thing I've learned when buying a full set of appliances couple of years ago: don't read consumer reports or reviews by randos on the internet -- instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers. They have actual hard data on the types and frequency of problems across brands and models. But back to the main theme of the article: hell to the no was my initial attitude, and…

Where do you find this data? The average person is going to use Google and because Google sucks they'll end up on some shill review site.

It's been a while, so these may be out of date:

- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide

- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...

- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...

Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.

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

#553

One thing I've learned when buying a full set of appliances couple of years ago: don't read consumer reports or reviews by randos on the internet -- instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers. They have actual hard data on the types and frequency of problems across brands and models. But back to the main theme of the article: hell to the no was my initial attitude, and…

It would help if you’d have posted an example of reports for service and warranty.

It's been a while, so these may be out of date:

- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide

- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...

- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...

Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.

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

#554
post #469

One thing I've learned when buying a full set of appliances couple of years ago: don't read consumer reports or reviews by randos on the internet -- instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers. They have actual hard data on the types and frequency of problems across brands and models. But back to the main theme of the article: hell to the no was my initial attitude, and…

> instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers. I'm joining the others in saying I don't know where to find this info...

It's been a while, so these may be out of date:

- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide

- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...

- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...

Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.

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

#555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I misspoke, but needing a network connection, needing a smartphone, giving over your details, very likely getting marketing materials you didn't want via app notifications, or email, requiring to comply with terms of service, and at any time the company is free to rescind or change the offer, to me is "paywalling". You are paying out, giving them things of real value, over and above buying the device, and if…

It's annoying, but it's not a paywall. > All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it. For a dishwasher yes, but I don't agree with that as a blanket statement. There are cloud connected devices that I really like. e.g. I like to run my Roomba on-demand after I leave my house, and I think that's an entirely reasonable use case. Many ot…

The internet doesn't need to be the cloud.

Security cameras are the classic example of widespread self hosted but internet-accessible.

Even the ones that have proprietary apps are often just alternative frontends to a web server running on the home network.

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

#556

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…

I will high-jack this top-rated comment to link to a comment further below. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297 This comment has a link to [0], explaining, in plain text: However, perhaps inline with the German attitudes towards privacy, the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time conne…

Jeff mentions it in the post:

> Another third option is somebody has reverse engineered this protocol and built HCPY, a Home Connect Python library.

> But here's the problem: I already spent like four hours getting this dishwasher installed in my kitchen. I don't want to spend another four hours configuring my own web UI for it—which still requires at least a one-time connection through Home Connect!—and maintaining that as a service on my local network, relying on an unauthorized third party library using reverse-engineering to get at the private dishwasher API!

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

#558

Seems like this Home Connect stuff does support local only/no cloud mode[0]. I recently discovered my parent's kitchen hardware is all Bosch with Home Connect and was afraid I had to run it through their cloud. But there seems to be some decent effort done in getting it to work with Home Assistant[1]. [0] https://trmm.net/homeconnect/ [1] https://github.com/hcpy2-0/hcpy

Jeff mentions it in the post:

> Another third option is somebody has reverse engineered this protocol and built HCPY, a Home Connect Python library.

> But here's the problem: I already spent like four hours getting this dishwasher installed in my kitchen. I don't want to spend another four hours configuring my own web UI for it—which still requires at least a one-time connection through Home Connect!—and maintaining that as a service on my local network, relying on an unauthorized third party library using reverse-engineering to get at the private dishwasher API!

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

#559
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pinging back to Google and then working I still have a bricked Android phone from nonsense like that. If you: 1. Factory reset the phone while not logged in to the last Google account on the phone 2. Have the Google account invalidated (e.g., using an identity verification app on a temp noogler account, ...) You'll never be able to access the phone again. The "factory reset" maintains some internal state despite a…

That's an anti theft feature. Intended to make the phone useless to a thief. It doesn't work very well, thieves manage to get around it somehow (not so much with Apple's version) so it ends up annoying the users more than it does deter thieves. Apple is really really difficult about getting these unlocked. The carriers can't do it, you have to show them proof of purchase and have an enterprise support contract. With…

> thieves manage to get around it somehow

There are vulnerabilities. Some years ago when this was a new feature I got an android phone to use for development for someone. I just generated a new google account on it and promptly forgot the new email and pass.

Time to return it: surprise, it wanted the previous account to log in after a factory reset. I ended up keeping it and paying for it.

A few months later, after a weekend of googling, I found instructions on how to bypass it by using some vulnerability in the browser invoked in the initial set up, got to a browser window with an address bar, used it to download and install some apk with an older version of some system service, and used that to bypass the lockdown.

Of course, it's probably much harder than that now. But it's doable.

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

#560
post #550

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.

Have to agree. The bottom line is that manufactures will continue to pull this trick as long as consumers keep buying. Even Jeff himself says that > I don't think we should let vendors get away with this stuff. But he _did_ let the vendor get away with it. That’s exactly what he did. He even spent a significant part of the article anticipating the push back by trying to reason why in his case he felt justified in doi…

I can hear Jeff's argument (in this very thread), that as a video creator, taking a public stance is an already impactful way to put pressure on the manufacturer. That's leverage enough for him.
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