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

301–310 of 682 posts

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

#301

Post by dorfsmay »

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

I have button and LEDs, and it works fine without wifi for "basic functions", but for "advanced functions" like washer deep cleaning I would need to use their website.

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

#302

Post by brewdad »

ekianjo wrote: post #292

> We don't have 1.5 hours every night to spend hand-washing dishes (not to mention the water bill!). Where is that bizarre conception that washing dishes by hands ends up wasting more water? If anything it's the other way around.

Nope. A modern dishwasher uses 2-3 gallons per load. If your dishwasher has Eco modes or a half-cycle mode, you can use even less. A typical kitchen faucet will deliver 2 gallons per minute. If you run your faucet for longer than that, and most people absolutely will, you are wasting water by hand washing.

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

#303

Post by taspeotis »

Not a huge fan of internet-of-shit but we have a similar Bosch dishwasher and it’s totally operable without wifi. I don’t think there is anything advertised to us that can’t be done by just pushing the buttons.

The smart stuff seems acceptably done: I can start cycles on my phone, it can be configured with the off-peak times for our power supply and automatically delay the overnight wash until then, I get a push notification on my Apple Watch to tell me to open the door to help drying, there are more program cycles you can download (which is the complaint here - should be more cycles on the machine).

And there is this useless feature where you can tell it you’ve bought, say, 90 dishwasher tablets and it will count down the tablets each wash and warn you when you need to buy more.

I say useless because you literally see how many tablets you have left when you fish them out of the box but still it felt like they tried to add some electronic smarts that made sense?

So yeah TL;DR works fine without wifi, with wifi you get some practical but otherwise ignorable functionality.

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

#304

Post by dorfsmay »

Aurornis wrote: post #184
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…

> by the time I read that it needs to use their website for some functions. > you cannot use all the functions without creating an account on their website and have them run those functions for you. Which functions? This is a really confusing post without knowing what those functions are.

On my model "deep cleaning" of the dishwasher, some other functions I think, but that I didn't care for.

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

#305

Post by hedgehog »

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…

For what it's worth I have an 800 series and it also made some features like delay start app-only. Even if I was ok with that it's still a terrible design for a multi-person household. See also: cars that are going app-only for remote start.

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

#306

Post by hedgehog »

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.

The "control board" which has all the high voltage stuff is totally separate from the computer. What Jeff wants to is totally reasonable, if a bit annoying because the computer bit is installed inside the door rather than externally accessible like the control board.

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

#308

Post by forgetfreeman »

bee_rider wrote: post #282
forgetfreeman wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bosch dishwasher here. Zero network connectivity of any kind and washes dishes better than any other non-industrial dishwasher I've ever used. 10/10, would recommend, will buy again.

> Bosch dishwasher here. Zero network connectivity of any kind Absolutely bullshit. If you are a dishwasher without any network connectivity, how are you posting comments on the internet, Mr Bosch?

*makes unconvincing rinse cycle noises

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

#309

Post by forgetfreeman »

Arrowmaster wrote: post #287
forgetfreeman wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bosch dishwasher here. Zero network connectivity of any kind and washes dishes better than any other non-industrial dishwasher I've ever used. 10/10, would recommend, will buy again.

According to Wirecutter, they pulled Bosch from their recommendations after all the old models were pulled and this new line of WiFi connected dishwashers replaced them in 2023. You would really purchase something based on past experience with the company, not caring about looking into the current state of what they are producing?

> You would really purchase something based on past experience with the company

Absolutely. Companies that make bullshit products very rarely get their act together, so why wouldn't brand loyalty be a thing when one encounters a quality product?

> after all the old models were pulled and this new line of WiFi connected dishwashers replaced them in 2023

That is news to me. If true my next dishwasher is going to be a Hobart from the used restaurant equipment shop up the way. Incidentally I just looked into it and Bosch claims that their HomeConnect enabled dishwashers function just fine with no internet connection, so there is that.

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

#310

Post by necovek »

stiglitz wrote: post #76
necovek wrote: post #59

While it's utterly true these features will simply get abandoned by the manufacturer, people seem to discount how hard (read: expensive) it is to develop local-first software, especially the one you want to just work with a mobile app that might or might not be on the same local network or subnet (try explaining that bit to your regular Bosch customer). Since we are, ultimately, such a minority, I am sure that not ev…

Why make it work with a mobile app at all? How is that even a convenience? This is an appliance you need to be physically present at to load and unload.

No disagreement there, but once you are set on a mobile app, you are going to push for it to be used.

It all probably starts benign: let's push some notifications to customer's phones (already requires a server — ahem, a cloud — and a mobile app).

Then smart product managers realize that the app is not used by anyone, and they start thinking about "value add" with the app, and quickly, you are looking at removing things from the physical unit and putting them only in software.

A PM next: look, this release has increased usage of the app 10x!

Instead of them just doing the right thing and nixing the app — but who'd advocate for cutting their own job?

Post reply on HN