"A tech-savvy San Francisco resident"
Nope. Connecting your washing machine to the internet isn't the act of a tech-savvy person.
Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
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Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#22I wonder if Retro washing machines and refrigerators (non-IOT) will go up in price because of this?
You could also just not give it a network, couldn't you?
Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#23Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#24I wonder if Retro washing machines and refrigerators (non-IOT) will go up in price because of this?
You could also just not give it a network, couldn't you?
You can but they can constantly scan for any open connection that happens by and then dump cached data into it when one is found. Cell modems are becoming cheaper too, as is bulk cellular bandwidth, especially if buffered for periods of low utilization. In those cases, it might be less data since the connection is limited or the data harvester is paying. People with basement laundry rooms will have a built in advantage when dealing with this sort of thing.
Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#25Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#26Looks like IoT devices are the next frontier in residential proxies ... or provide spies the next leading indicator into SV business performance.
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Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#27I wanted to say it was just constantly downloading an update. But it it appears to be outgoing traffic ...
My hypothesis was a fast retry loop failing to connect / send over and over.
Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#28They better not be airing my dirty laundry! My washer/dryer has a microphone so it can hear the tones from LG support over the phone that tell it to play back its diagnostic code. Kidding aside, the trust we put in the myriad of internet-connected devices with microphones in our spaces is mind-boggling. Even lightstrips and lightbulbs have microphones to sync with music, and often show up as open Bluetooth devices fo…
I bought a house and was pleased to find 0 smart anything in it. It's not even that I care about privacy, just don't want to deal with pointless tech problems like uh lightbulbs needing updates.
Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could also just not give it a network, couldn't you?
You can but they can constantly scan for any open connection that happens by and then dump cached data into it when one is found. Cell modems are becoming cheaper too, as is bulk cellular bandwidth, especially if buffered for periods of low utilization. In those cases, it might be less data since the connection is limited or the data harvester is paying. People with basement laundry rooms will have a built in advanta…
One can still conduct deauth attacks fairly easily, or, if the device just picks the strongest open network signal, one can set up a dummy / honeypot WLAN right next to the appliance that has no internet connectivity, and as you note with the basement reference, faraday solutions can work well, too, not to mention simply removing or disabling the networking hardware.
This is also true for cars - it's often not terribly difficult to pull the fuse for the cellular modem provided you can procure a manual.
Re: Homeowner baffled after washing machine uses 3.6GB of internet data a day (2024)
#30"A tech-savvy San Francisco resident" Nope. Connecting your washing machine to the internet isn't the act of a tech-savvy person.
Newsweek's "tech-savvy" isn't HN's "tech-savvy", in fairness.