Technology
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
This is an old article and iirc this was a reporting issue with their router. The wash machine was not using that much data.
This nonsense keeps getting reposted, when it was discovered previously it was a router reporting error
Why the fuck does my appliance need wifi? It's not ordering refills for consumables when low at a great discount nor is it going to schedule it's own maintenance as it passes lifetime milestones or detects errors.
I don't want my fucking washer/dryer to text me when the load is done and I definitely don't want my fridge to alert me I'm low on milk or bread, or the door is open. That's such a huge backdoor for anyone looking to maliciously gather data and peer into my life, definitely without my consent.
If, just for fucking once, they could use fully open source software to send that information directly to my mobile phone instead of using black box software to send all my info their corporate overlords, we might talk.
In principle these things aren't directly a bad idea. The fact that these asshats inserted themselves in the process is.
My fucking washer has NFC and I cant even figure out why I would ever need that, let alone WiFi?
Features for features sake, I guess? Another bullet point on the features list.
It's not very useful. But, I can start a program from an app which is a lot easier than understanding all the little logos on the unit. Plus I have more flexibility to tweak it, like be faster or gentler or schedule it to cheaper electricity hours all much more easily and intuitively than in the panel.
Also timer, remote start, and letting me know when it's done are something I might use once in a blue moon.
Can I live without it, hell yes, but is it a totally useless gimmick... Well 50/50.
I have my washer and dryer on an isolated network. It’s actually useful to be able to tell if they’re done without walking to the other end of the house to check.
Mr. moneybags over here with his house...
Exactly my thought hahaha my house is normal size and I can hear that sucker beeping anywhere
Now, all joking aside, what's the big advanta of knowing exactly when the cycle finishes? I get that it may vary because of the new sensor driven cycles but still.... Unless you are running a laundromat and every second of machine use counts, I can ballpark it just fine
Seems entirely unnecessary. My units have buzzers that go off when they complete a cycle. I also have a phone with a timer setting, I know a load of laundry will take approx 60min to accomplish per machine. I don't see the need to spend my time and money to create a more complex system.
Glad I bought a non-smart washer and dryer. I've yet to encounter any situation in life where I thought, "too bad my appliance doesn't have Internet". Not once ever.
I like my old dumpy dryer. Its a motor, a belt, and the most complicated component: a timer. Ive fixed the thing several times, still runs fine despite being 15+ years old.
Botnet node? 3GB sounds excessive even for a company that's notoriously invasive.
As someone else already posted, the 3GB was incorrect, it was a router reporting incorrect traffic.
But that doesn't seem to stop everyone here from continuing to post how the thing that didn't happen in the first place is ridiculous...
When your washing machine tries to download Baldurs Gate 3 because it’s bored too
Data laundry.
I dunno, isn't the homeowner an idiot for putting a smart washer on WiFi in the first place? We don't need smart devices, they aren't making our lives better.
To the average person, putting that much thought and effort into it is for elite hackers only. I know a guy that does cybersecurity and still has smart everything in his house.
I find the idea of "downloading new wash programs" to be absurd.
Main Menu:
-
Wash laundry
-
Mine crypto
-
Launder crypto
Now the Chinese government knows exactly how many socks have gone missing, but no it won't tell you where they all went.
If you put any of these things on your wifi add them to your parental control settings that most routers have. Restrict what it can access and what times it allowed to connect to the internet.
Or ideally just don't put it on the wifi. I just set a timer for when it is done. Even those with variable cycles are fairly predictable and it isn't usually a big deal if your timer is 15min late.
Homeowner should be baffled at why he was
- Stupid enough to waste money on a fucking internet connected washing machine
- Stupid enough to connect it to the fucking internet
- Stupid enough to be surprised at it doing shady shit.
You already have a phone in your hand just put an alarm on there. There are you eliminated the supposed use of internet on a washer.
-
Newer washing machines vary in time depending on how dirty your clothes are. So the same program may take 50 minutes or 90 minutes. This cannot be solved with a regular timer.
-
If you have a job with varying hours, you might want to start the washing mashine when you're heading home. Then you're clothes are ready to be hung as you arrive and they aren't laying around for hours.
-
If you own photovoltaic, you might want to time energy intense home appliances such as washing machines, dish washers etc. to a period of overproduction.
Not saying, these issues are super important but there definitely are use cases for smart devices. However, I'd always recommend using a local / self-hosted rather than a cloud-based solution.
y'all are min-maxing life a bit hard there.
Solution in search of a problem.
I guess a mobile alert that lets you know the cycle is finished could be handy? Ability to schedule a load to start later? Maybe a maintenance or problem alert? Depleted detergent and fabric softener reservoir?
Possibly an energy usage chart for the nerds out there who like that kind of thing?
But damn, all of that shouldn't need more than a few kb a day max.
For most of these events an internet connection isn't necessary at all.
My machine shows the time that is needed for the program when I start it. I know when it will be finished right from the beginning. There's no surprise, no message necessary. If I tend to forget the time, then I can set a reminder in my smartphone.
I can program the machine while I load it to start the washing later. Why load the machine but then program it from a distance? Makes no sense.
Detergent is filled in before each washing cycle. There's nothing to be depleted.
A maintenance or problem alert would be the only thing that could be worth a message function. But: My machine works without problems for 15 years now. So: what should it be messaging me? We can really live better without these useless electronics that only push up the price and the distraction.
If you think the useless appliances are bad, just take a look at more critical connected devices.
I needed some POE security cameras, found some foscam ones on the cheap. Plug them up, go to IP, "install our app"... was pleased to find it allowed a local account without the need for an email, but found that half of my network traffic was comprised of requests to their "ivyIOT AI detection". I didnt measure what data was going through before sectioning them behind a firewall zone.
My fault for not having looked further into other brands, they were still a bargain and work without issue with my setup, but annoying
I have a supposedly smart washing machine that came with the apartment. Setting it up in my locked down appliances network, it didn't work with home-assistant, required cloud access and wanted me to open up ports in the firewall. Nope. No network connection for you. You are a regular dumb old washing machine.