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I get significantly cheaper electricity at night ($0.12 vs > $0.50/kwh, stupid California). Being able to schedule saves money, not that WiFi is necessarily required.
Did you check how much power your washer uses? Mine uses 0.4 kwh so you'd be saving 15.2 cents per load. Not really worth the hassle IMO.
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I'm totally with you, except a notification that it's finished would actually be really helpful. It's apparently possible to track a washing machine's progress with a smart switch that monitors power draw; I've got one lying around so might try to implement that soon, to complement my hacky RPi-Ring-doorbell-announcer :)
My Miele washer and dryer send me notifications when done.
I guess another use case would be measuring water and energy consumption but I doubt that people paying top dollar for these appliances are the type to keep an eye on such things.
(after https://twitter.com/meekaale/status/1744807035454079079 )
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Siri set a timer for *looks at washer screen* minutes That's it. But tbh wish my smart speakers would learn all the appliance chimes instead.
My dryer timer is reasonably accurate, but on my washing machine the last two minutes are like the last two minutes of a football game.
Why hasn't anyone mentioned a botnet yet? Those devices are perfect targets for Mirai clones. (yes, you still cannot run a mailserver at home, currently because we live in the age of Internet of Shit).
> In a follow-up post a day after his initial Tweet, Johnie noted “inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool.” Other LG smart washing machine users showed device data use from their apps. It turns out that these appliances more typically use less than 1MB per day.
I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a networked washing machine.
When I was in college, the machines in my dorm building’s laundry room would send you an SMS when the cycle finished. It was super handy, and would be awesome to have if your home is multi-level (or the machine is tucked away where no one can hear it scream)
Therefore, it was very easy for me to put together some laundry loads, and then navigate to that website and see exactly whether I'd be able to go downstairs and start my loads immediately, or how long I'd need to wait until machines were freed up for my purposes.
Then they enshittified it. They took away the central payment kiosk and installed individual card readers on each machine. These card readers had some unholy mix of Bluetooth and WiFi on them and the new app was completely incompatible with the Android tablet I had at the time. Apparently it was mandatory to have both Internet and BT access before you could even start a machine anymore. To add insult to injury, they deprecated the public status website and walled up the status reports inside the app. In fact, you couldn't even get a report until you'd paid to start one of the machines, thus invalidating my old strategy of proactively checking for availability.
Then there was a protracted battle between landlady and CSC whereby there were many malfunctions and accusations about whose responsibility it was. The pandemic struck, and there was some third-party disinfecting service that was supposed to be sanitizing machines, but left huge gobs of lint and detritus behind them all anyway.
Eventually it came to a head, and the landlady severed their contract with CSC and brought in a new service company. They have apps and cash preloading and whatever and you know what? I stopped using the laundry room entirely. Now I bring my clothes to a Wash & Fold service, and have it professionally cleaned, because doing laundry is too strenuous for me anymore. Problem solved!
I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a networked washing machine.
I have a smart plug on my washing machine and dryer which I use to try and identify when the cycles have finished. It doesn't work great, I'd much prefer a direct API to send a notification when the machine says it's actually finished.
Well it's still better than a Chinese robotic vacuum cleaner with a bunch of cameras doing it.
iRobot, the robotic vacuum cleaner company that leaked photos of people on the toilet as viewed from the vacuum cleaners' cameras, is an American company. If I'm not mistaken they grew out of MIT.
The information you left out:
1. Those were test units, not purchased devices used by customers.
2. For consumer Roomba devices that include a camera: photographic data is not sent to iRobot for processing.
3. The test data for the images you mentioned was leaked by a 3rd party based in Venezuela.
4. These test devices were operated by employees and volunteers in exchange for rewards. They were aware that their image was being taken.
5. The devices also contained additional monitoring hardware attached to the device which is not present in the consumer models.
If anything this fiasco demonstrated:
(i) one of the weaknesses of outsourcing,
(ii) individuals taking part in testing should be mindful of their privacy,
(iii) test units should have user-purgeable test data (if this was not already included)
(iv) the importance of reading beyond a headline
Refs: (1) https://www.businessinsider.com/roomba-photos-recorded-bathr...
I'm not opposed to smart homes, I love being able to turn my lights on and off from across the room. But I don't know if I understand the use case for a networked washing machine.
As others have said, the notifications are useful, but you can also track the wash/dry cycle and see what it's done so far, what is left and the estimated remaining time.
I like it because the smart features are optional and are genuinely useful.