Your washing machine could be sending 3.7 GB of data a day — LG washing machine owner disconnected his device from Wi-Fi after noticing excessive outgoing daily data traffic
www.tomshardware.comThe owner was puzzled why a clothes washer would need so much data.
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To get notifications when your laundry is done.
As someone with adhd, I could see it being super helpful for me.
FWIW I accomplish this with a zigbee outlet on the washer and dryer (dryer is gas, so it’s not a 50a circuit). It has stats on power consumption and I have a home assistant sensor set up so that when it drops below a threshold for a period of time, it counts the washer/dryer as off and notifies me.
Only works if you can start a cycle on power on. My machine will just sit there waiting for someone to press the go button.
I don’t actually use it to control anything, though I have in the past had an automation to turn off the dryer because GE is total crap and the sound on/off button busted, but the sound is super annoying. But anyway yeah, I’m actually only using these outlets for their sensors to decide if the machines are on or off.
Yep, this ☝️
I have an lg machine with notifications… it’s very helpful.
We have two young kids, laundry is constant.
Reminders to run the tub wash cycle are helpful, or when airflow is bad, etc
Its a good reason to allow wifi but there is no reason for you to receive such a notification unless your home to act on it, otherwise your better of receiving the notification once your phone reconnect with your homes wifi.
Wifi isnt the same as internet.
There is sometimes but rarely a good reason for those same decides to connect to the public web. They are much more secure if everything stays local.
The prime reason companies claim they need internet so you can set up things like stop heat when i am not home…. But guess what, if my phone isnt activity at home connecting to wifi, my home server can figure it out on its own, no cloud required.
My dryer is as dumb as they come. It just beeps like a motherfucker until I open the door, which is pretty effective.
My ‘smart’ LG washer/dryer plays a jaunty little tune when done. Even on max volume it’s difficult to hear. I miss my old dumb machines.
See, mine makes absolutely zero noise when done, which isn’t a good thing for me. But, I’d be more likely to build my own smart system (probably a flow sensor on the drain).
Or light sensor, monitoring machine’s lights.
I’ve found vibration sensing to be the easiest.
An alarm could likely help you accomplish the same thing without the wifi-connected washing machine.
Whatever works for you works for you, though.
This is only true if every load takes exactly the same amount of time. Modern machines have more sensors to adjust things like water level and spin times. Very often now I start my washer and the time will drop from 1 hour depending on how much is in the machine.
Plus, the alarm is easy to dismiss and forget about. An actual notification on my phone isn’t.
Well, you don’t necessarily need to deal with the laundry the second the machine is ready - if you merely set the alarm to be the approximate maximum time, you’re probably going to be fine with the laundry spending half an hour or so sitting wet in the machine.
If the alarm is easy to dismiss, then perhaps a reminder app could be of use. I frequently use Google Tasks with a time for the tasks to cope with everyday life, which sends a notification at the specified time.
Likely an alarm needs to be set every time, a notification of finished load is likely automatic.
Yup, I have alarms in my phone for this. Adhd means I’ll forget to set that alarm most of the time.
Doesn’t have to be connected to the cloud for that, except if you do your laundry when you’re not home.
For the way modern stuff works, it does. If you want notifications that don’t chew through battery life on Android or notifications at all on iOS, then it needs to go through the respective notification services.
We /could/ design ways that this wouldn’t be an issue and entirely local push notifications could be a thing. But it’s not how your devices work today.
Three letter agencies want to read your notifications so we have to have a centralised service
Ah ben tabarnak.
Fair point, I didn’t think of that. Any IoT device gets put in the “naughty” vlan and 99% of their outgoing requests goes straight to /Dev/null
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Consumer grade Netgear routers support VLANs.
My ISP router can do vlan mate.
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Ubiquiti ERX $59.
Why are you so bitter? Chill out.
I need to set up my VLANs 🥺
Its saved my skin once when my retard cousin connected his malware infected laptop to my “I domt control this device” network. Only other thing on the network was my work laptop that has a ton of security on it. More than I even have on my stuff. So it lit up like a Christmas tree and commited suicide. Get a ping from my boss asking what the fuck I downloaded lmao.
You’re making me wanna cry. I need this in my life!
I do the same thing. All they’re allowed to talk to is Home Assistant except for when I allow internet access to update firmware.