[HN Gopher] LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day
___________________________________________________________________
LG washing machine sending 3.7GB of data a day
Author : monkburger
Score : 115 points
Date : 2024-01-13 21:11 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| monospaced wrote:
| > 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.
| monkburger wrote:
| Ah! I should have read a little further. I apologize!
| seanalltogether wrote:
| If these devices are designed to upload "automatic diagnostic
| reports" to a central tracker, it's possible this machine is
| stuck in a failure state that is generating massive amounts of
| error logs.
| cratermoon wrote:
| A megabyte a day still seems excessive.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| If you agree to some form of anonymous tracking for
| diagnostics I can see 1mb being reasonable. This would be
| periodic update on things like usage levels, part quality,
| etc.
|
| Most likely that tracking acceptance is buried in some 500
| page eula, but thats a separate issue.
| solardev wrote:
| Why do you need an entire megabyte for that? Even if you
| did laundry five times a day, it shouldn't take more than a
| few bytes to store a few metrics.
|
| Even if you're lazy and uploaded an uncompressed JSON array
| of objects, that shouldn't be more than a few kB. Way less
| if you compress it.
|
| A megabyte is a LOT of data.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I could easily see it measuring the forces and weight on
| the drum every 5 seconds (or even every 10 ms) during the
| whole wash, to be able to produce charts of vibration
| patterns, that engineers could use to correlate with
| failure. Remember -- when you're spinning at high speed
| to wring out the water, it's actually some pretty crazy
| strong forces.
|
| Or other things measured every ~second, like stuff
| related to the motor, temperatues, humidity, etc. and
| other diagnostics.
|
| Seems _really_ easy to generate a megabyte if you
| consider time series. Even easier if it 's in XML or JSON
| rather than a CSV.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| It seems completely inconsequential
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| It seems completely inexplicable.
|
| I don't care if it's a small percentage of my symmetric
| gigabit fiber, I only care why they supposedly need it and
| where it ends up.
|
| A phone number or a timestamp is a tiny amount of data.
|
| In the quaint olden days, you had to go out of your way to
| volunteer to be a part of some study to have any aspect of
| your activity recorded every few seconds 24/7 to be
| collected and analysed like that.
|
| It also doesn't matter that my washing machine usage might
| not seem like sensitive info. It's wrong by default rather
| than OK by default. You need a compelling need to justify
| it, not the other way around. It needs to be necessary to
| prevent one dead baby every day or something, not the other
| way around. No one needs to produce any convincing example
| of harm for that kind of collection to be wrong.
|
| But even so, it's easy to point out how literally any data
| can end up being sensitive. Washing machine usage could
| lead to all kinds of assumptions like, this person does not
| actually live where they say they do (which impacts all
| kinds of things), or this person is running an illegal
| business, or housing too many people for the rating of the
| dwelling or allowed by the lease, etc, or just another data
| point tracking your movements in general. Or even merely to
| get out of 10% of warranty claims.
| gberger wrote:
| It's 12 bytes per second, or less than 1kB per minute.
| Doesn't seem like much.
| poisonborz wrote:
| For telemetry on a washing machine, it is enormous.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| That's WiFi/Bluetooth signal strength mapping amounts of
| data.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| Other users having low data usage doesn't prove they also have
| low usage?
|
| Are people so uncomfortable saying "we don't know" that they
| use such loose reasoning to "get the answer"?
|
| I'll re-read the article/tweets, maybe I missed something.
| yakz wrote:
| My Ubiquiti UniFi UDM is not good at device identification.
| It's kind of annoying because I have this big list of devices
| on the network and it's peppered with devices that I know don't
| exist. I'd appreciate it if it said something like "Maybe iPad
| Air", instead of just "iPad Pro 2nd Gen" when I know no such
| device is on my network.
| stock_toaster wrote:
| ios devices (unsure about android) use random MACs on
| wireless networks by default.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/102509
| vsgherzi wrote:
| Random aside for this, I believe this functionality existed
| for many years but actually hasn't worked until recently.
| (Take this with a grain of salt)
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| The traffic stats my UDM shows are complete fiction. The data
| it presents makes no sense.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| A couple of notes:
|
| 1. If you must have an IoT device, favor zigbee.
|
| 2. Put your IoT devices on a segmented network that you've
| throttled. IoT devices neither need nor deserve privileged
| network access.
|
| 3. Probably don't use a consumer grade router if you know how to
| monitor network traffic.
|
| 4. That all being said, it feels unlikely that an IoT device
| would be exposed on a properly configured router to anything
| beyond vendor spyware.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It shouldn't even need internet access. IoT is a stupid name.
| It's just networking.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| Uhhh, alright.
|
| Anyhow, many devices require network access for useful
| functionality.
|
| That network is ideally zigbee.
|
| (It's also possible for Bluetooth to make up for some of the
| lost featureset for non-realtime applications, so I'd favor
| Bluetooth smart devices over wifi smart devices.)
| globular-toast wrote:
| Yes, Zigbee is the way to go. But the point is there
| shouldn't be any internet involved. Using the internet
| protocol on wifi is the stupidest way to do this kind of
| stuff and leads to dumb crap like your washing machine
| phoning home.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| I mean, it's obviously a pretty good product in terms of
| effortlessly providing networking to a device in a way
| that an average home user can manage. Everyone has wifi.
|
| That being said, a better architected device would
| probably just use Bluetooth and your smartphone as a
| controller. I don't think many average home users could
| tell the difference.
| jrockway wrote:
| I disagree with some of these points:
|
| 1. Z-wave is better, but Wifi can be fine in the right
| environment. Like, my weather station uses Wifi because it
| sends a few bytes of data to a server once a minute. No need
| for an additional protocol going on that interferes with
| everything else on 2.4GHz anyway. I also use Wifi for a sensor
| I put in my box that stores 3D printer filament to measure its
| humidity, so I know when to recharge the desiccant. An ESP32
| wakes up every half hour, measures the humidity, and sends it
| over HTTPS to an InfluxDB instance in "the cloud". Its tiny
| lithium polymer battery lasts a year. It took me maybe an hour
| to design the hardware and write the software for it. Why do
| anything more complicated? Why bother with an esoteric protocol
| when you just want to use the Internet?
|
| 3. Consumer grade routers are great these days. I have a 10G
| WAN, 10G LAN, and Wifi6e on the router that Verizon provides
| with my service for free. To buy something like that myself,
| I'd be spending 700 or 800 dollars so that I can pretend to be
| a sysadmin on my day off. Why bother?
| boringuser2 wrote:
| 3. I don't think you're understanding what the contentions
| about consumer grade routers are.
|
| Make no mistake: consumer grade routers are a massive
| security risk, and continue to be to this day.
|
| They have no incentive to respond to and mitigate CVEs.
|
| They frequently have hardwired credentials.
|
| They don't have robust networking tools.
|
| They are common targets for hacks for these reasons.
|
| Regarding throughput, yes, 10gb is quite a bit. It'd probably
| be somewhat troublesome to get a home router with those kinds
| of physical ports (though CPU throughput would be trivial,
| see Intel's latest offerings. The n100 range can saturate any
| reasonable connection, including IPS, which you don't have).
|
| It's just not necessary, though. I am a power user, software
| engineer, hosting ~50 docker containers, many with custom
| code on 300mbps. No slowdown. No saturation.
|
| Furthermore, a cheap enterprise AP from eBay, even on wifi 5,
| is vastly superior to your Verizon AP.
|
| I'm not a networking professional. I installed OpnSense and
| connected a ruckus AP. Done.
|
| 1. If you had a decent AP, zigbee interference wouldn't be an
| issue, wink emoji.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| 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.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Progress tracking, diagnostics, temperature tracking, load
| unevenness alerting, remote disable if broken, etc.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I could imagine a situation like, "I will be out all day and
| only return in the late evening - if I start the wash cycle
| when leaving, it will sit wet in the machine all day. But if I
| start it when I return, I will have to stay awake to put it in
| the dryer. I'd like to start it on a timer so the wash cycle
| finishes just as I return." But that's both pretty contrived
| and most non-smart washing machines can do that with a timer
| anyway.
| nomel wrote:
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 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.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| The dryer is more interesting
| Eisenstein wrote:
| How much electricity is your washing machine using?
| HPsquared wrote:
| A lot of washing machines remember their previous state when
| the power goes out.
|
| You can use this to your advantage using a smart switch:
| start the wash cycle, turn off the power straight after. When
| you turn the power back on at a scheduled time (using the
| smart switch), the washing machine will pick up where it left
| off (at the beginning of the cycle).
|
| Also a lot of them just have a timer built-in anyway.
| cmckn wrote:
| 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)
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| So we have three laundry rooms here where I live, and they
| were all managed by CSC ServiceWorks until recently. When I
| first moved in, CSC had an amazing system setup, whereby you
| could go to their website and see a real-time animation of
| all the machines in the room, their current status, and their
| remaining time. This page updated very rapidly and always
| showed accurate information, including any machines that were
| out of service.
|
| 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!
| mft_ wrote:
| 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 :)
| sroussey wrote:
| My Miele washer and dryer send me notifications when done.
| kioleanu wrote:
| That is, I think, the only valid use case. I have an AEG
| washer that does some voodoo to decide wash times and only
| shows the estimate at the start, then it weighs the
| clothes, looks at how dirty they are and so on. The washer
| is two floors down and I never know when it's actually
| done. As a side note, I think my washer is "smart" ready,
| meaning it has all the electronics already in and the panel
| has the lights already installed, just that it's not
| activated because a didn't pay another 100 euros for it.
|
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 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.
| krallja wrote:
| My dryer will straight up lie to me and say "20 minutes"
| for anything between 0 and 60 minutes. I think it realizes
| the clothes are still too damp and just keeps running, but
| whatever differential equation it's using to predict time
| remaining seems flawed.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| 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.
| mft_ wrote:
| Yep - ours seems to take 0-10 minutes longer than it
| predicts at the start.
| varjag wrote:
| You are still dependent on a smart gadget but with less
| quality.
| lloeki wrote:
| > It's apparently possible to track a washing machine's
| progress with a smart switch that monitors power draw;
|
| Can confirm, it's what I do. I can even detect which part of
| the cycle it is in using plain Home Assistant template
| sensors.
|
| It's crude but it works. Detecting washing vs not is trivial,
| but I went the extra mile, looking at the power history and
| analysed the thing visually to get the general profile of
| each part, taking into account peaks, throughs, noise to have
| some unambiguous rules. Some are wrong if taken in isolation
| but taking the order of priority into account, flattening the
| result with if/elif in a single state sensor it becomes
| correct. That strategy is also very easy to debug visually
| with a entity history list in the dashboard.
|
| I could probably also detect error states (which I had a few,
| like filter clogged with lint preventing water drain) as in
| this case the panel stays lit with the error code basically
| forever VS a normal cycle has it lit but ultimately it shuts
| down to deeper sleep states once it's done.
|
| I really enjoy making dumb devices smart, it's a nice
| decoupling too and means I can just change e.g washing
| machine if it dies, adjust a few values below, and be all the
| merrier.
|
| (nixos config, but it's a 1:1 to YAML and you get the idea)
| services.home-assistant = { #... config
| = { #... template = [ # washing
| machine # 5-6W: on (idle, panel lit)
| # 4-5W: off (sleep after on, panel unlit) #
| 0.1-1W: off (deep sleep) # 2100-2200W: water
| heating # noisy 8-100W, trough 10W: washing
| # ramp-up 15-500W, plateau 300-500W, noisy 100W: spin dry
| # 1300-1500W, trough 40W-150W: tumble dry #
| 7.5-8W 240s, peak 95-105W, 20-25W 30s: cooldown {
| sensor = [ { name =
| "washing_machine_power";
| unit_of_measurement = "W"; state_class =
| "measurement"; state = "{{
| states('sensor.shellyplusplugs_80646fc7bb4c_switch_0_power')
| }}"; } {
| name = "washing_machine_state"; state = ''
| {% if is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_heating', 'on')
| %} heating
| {% elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_drying',
| 'on') %} drying {%
| elif is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_spinning', 'on')
| %} spinning {% elif
| is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_cooling', 'on') %}
| cooling {% elif
| is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_washing', 'on') %}
| washing {% elif
| is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_idle', 'on') %}
| idle {% elif
| is_state('binary_sensor.washing_machine_sleeping', 'on') %}
| sleeping {% elif
| states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | float(default=0) <
| 0.01 %} off {%
| endif %} ''; }
| ]; binary_sensor = [ {
| name = "washing_machine_active"; state = ''
| {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) >
| 30 }} ''; delay_on = {
| minutes = 2; }; delay_off = { minutes = 2;
| }; } { name
| = "washing_machine_heating"; state = ''
| {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) >
| 1900 }} ''; delay_on = {
| seconds = 5; }; delay_off = { seconds = 10;
| }; } { name
| = "washing_machine_drying"; state = ''
| {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) >
| 1000 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') |
| int(default=0) < 1600 }} '';
| delay_on = { seconds = 5; }; delay_off = {
| seconds = 120; }; } {
| name = "washing_machine_washing"; state =
| '' {{
| states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 30
| and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) <
| 150 }} ''; delay_on = {
| seconds = 120; }; delay_off = { seconds =
| 45; }; } {
| name = "washing_machine_spinning"; state =
| '' {{
| states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) > 150
| and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) <
| 500 }} ''; delay_on = {
| seconds = 5; }; delay_off = { seconds = 5;
| }; } { name
| = "washing_machine_cooling"; state = ''
| {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) >
| 6 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0)
| < 30 }} ''; delay_on = {
| seconds = 90; }; delay_off = { seconds =
| 60; }; } {
| name = "washing_machine_idle"; state = ''
| {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0) >
| 1 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | int(default=0)
| < 6 }} ''; delay_on = {
| seconds = 1; }; delay_off = { seconds = 1;
| }; } { name
| = "washing_machine_sleeping"; state = ''
| {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power') | float(default=0)
| > 0.01 and states('sensor.washing_machine_power') |
| int(default=0) < 1 }} '';
| delay_on = { seconds = 1; }; delay_off = {
| seconds = 1; }; } ];
| } ];
| erinnh wrote:
| Definitively possible. It's what I do with my dumb washing
| machine. Just have your home automation tool of choice notify
| you if power draw moves below 5w or something.
| Moru wrote:
| We live in a smaller appartment building with a shared
| laundry room with two machines. They both say exactly how
| many minutes the laundry has left so we just set our timer
| for the last machine. They take between 35 and 55 minutes
| per run. We can run 6-8 machines in the five hour slot we
| can book. Since they slowly get desynced depending on what
| program you run, there is no need to get a notification.
| You have 20 minutes to sit until the next machine needs
| taking care of :-)
| jliptzin wrote:
| This is the best approach, if you can do it. Keep the devices
| dumb and add in whatever modules you need on top to make them
| as "smart" as you want them to be.
| whstl wrote:
| Some Ikea stuff does it halfway. Local-only Zigbee, so it's
| not exactly dumb, but if you want to go online you can buy
| a gateway.
| urdbjtdvbg wrote:
| Wait an hour. It's done.
| mft_ wrote:
| Our washing machine offers various programs between 30
| minutes and 2 hours and 40 minutes.
|
| Yes, it's not hard to set an alarm, except the timing on
| the washing machine is unreliable (I've lost count of how
| many times I've set an alarn with a few minutes extra and
| still had to wait longer.) It would just be nice to have a
| little notification - making that chore 1% pleasanter. :)
| poisonborz wrote:
| They all make a sound when done, you could set up a SoC
| with a microphone to listen to it. Or monitor power draw.
| Many ways to do it externally.
| noirbot wrote:
| My worry would be that you'd have to do some diagnostics
| on the audio to determine the actual sound. The loudest
| noise my washer makes is the spin/rinse cycle, which is
| right before the sound it makes when it's done. You can't
| just key off of "loud noise" and I don't know how hard
| setting up to listen to specific frequencies for alerting
| is.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| NSA filters the power to sensitive computers.
|
| You can exfiltrate encryption keys if you can monitor power
| usage.
|
| https://www.securityweek.com/platypus-hackers-can-obtain-
| cry...
| XorNot wrote:
| 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.
| kioleanu wrote:
| You can buy smart vibrations sensors for that. No vibrating
| should mean it's done, unless it lets the clothes soak- I
| have no idea, washed clothes hundreds of times but I've never
| looked to see what the washer actually does
| daveoc64 wrote:
| I have an LG Washer/Dryer with smart functions.
|
| 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.
| RajT88 wrote:
| My sister has such a smart washer and funds these same
| features useful.
|
| I had to helo her get it connected to wifi - it would not
| stay connected. Turns out she was on the same channel as
| literally all her neighbors.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I created a wifi network for most of the smart appliances at
| home. It's nice that Unifi hardware lets you choose some of the
| higher-level wifi protocol options per-network, so I have a
| modern roaming-enabled 802.11 5GHz network for most devices, and
| the legacy 2.4GHz one for the fridge and stove to make use of.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Most routers have a "guest network" - that's where all my smart
| devices live.
| account-5 wrote:
| If I even connect them.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| New: data-efficient washing machine. Only 90Gb per load!! Buy
| now!
| amelius wrote:
| Well it's still better than a Chinese robotic vacuum cleaner with
| a bunch of cameras doing it.
| dotancohen wrote:
| 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.
| quitit wrote:
| That's rather cherry-picked.
|
| 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...
|
| (2) https://homesupport.irobot.com/s/article/31056
|
| (3) https://homesupport.irobot.com/s/article/964
| dotancohen wrote:
| I read a headline, chose a position, and remember only the
| grossest of one-sided arguments with no chance for the
| other side to respond. Am I not now entitled to hold a
| strong opinion and try to influence others in the matter?
| rvba wrote:
| It probably sends just sounds all the sounds
| Towaway69 wrote:
| China is cheaper than making it in the USA with an onboard NSA
| chip. The assumption that China is spying on us is based ... I
| dunno but why buy it if you are worried?
| redbell wrote:
| > An LG washing machine owner and _self-confessed fintech geek_
| has asked the Twitterverse why his smart home appliance ate an
| average of 3.66GB of data daily.
|
| What about non-techies?! How would they notice and react to such
| data harvesting behaviors in their homes' appliances, computers,
| phones, gadgets? I believe there must be a bare minimum of self-
| awareness to deal with the ever-evolving digital world we live
| in.
| userbinator wrote:
| Awareness is the last thing the companies who create these
| things want users to have.
| H8crilA wrote:
| 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).
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| This was the first thing that came to mind. Imagine a fleet of
| laundry machines each sending 3.7GB of data. That's the perfect
| way to run a DDOS, and nobody will ever notice.
| account-5 wrote:
| For some reason the scene in the mall from The Mitchell's Vs
| the machines popped into my head:
|
| > delicates, fluff n fold, carnage!
| codeulike wrote:
| 3.7GB seems like a lot, but modern appliances are highly
| efficient, a lot of those bits just circulate between the laundry
| and the router to cool down between wash cycles ... people just
| don't understand how much data they use when hand washing
| clothes, sloshing gigabytes down the drain...
|
| (after https://twitter.com/meekaale/status/1744807035454079079 )
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Is anyone else surprised at the ~70GB per day usage (assuming
| 3.7GB is 5% of total usage)? That would exceed the 1.28TB data
| cap on my ISP.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| More discussion here with even the person who reported it
| posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38930507
| jakderrida wrote:
| Stupid laundry machine spends all day on reddit downvoting my
| jokes and memes.
| tkems wrote:
| While I get the appeal of having networked devices that you can
| access from anywhere, I want local control for everything. Sure,
| a cloud option on top is nice, but local first!
|
| I feel that the current solution to "control from anywhere" is
| the laziest and most privacy invasive. Also, when XYZ company
| shuts down there service in 2 years and abandons your product,
| you might not even be able to use it anymore. What a waste.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| The software was replaced by an AI, and it's watching YouTube
| videos on how to do it's job.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| If I recall correctly, his washer was mining Bitcoin.
| evan_ wrote:
| you do not recall correctly
| Tommah wrote:
| The newest form of money laundering.
| userbinator wrote:
| Assuming I'd be stupid enough to have a "smart" washing machine,
| in this case I would've immediately started capturing packets to
| determine what's going on. Apparently it was a misreporting(!) in
| the router's firmware, but the opaqueness of modern technology
| (and the ignorance it tends to perpetuate) can be very
| infuriating.
|
| Meanwhile my washing machine has zero electronics and is
| completely predictable and obvious in operation.
| account-5 wrote:
| Zero electronics? What are you using? A washboard and a mangle?
| tzs wrote:
| For those who do not want WiFi on their appliances you still can
| get highly rated reasonably priced washing machines without WiFi,
| even from the companies that are putting WiFi in nearly
| everything.
|
| E.g., I recently bought an LG WM3400CW washing machine for $650.
| On Consumer Reports it is tied for 3rd on the front loader
| ratings list. The LG 3900 and 4000 are tied for #1 with overall
| scores of 87, then the 3400, 8900, and 3600 tied for #3 with
| overall scores of 85.
|
| Nearly every LG has WiFi nowadays, but not the 3400. Consumer
| Reports says it does but I think they probably got confused
| because it has LG's "Smart Diagnosis" which lets you get
| diagnostic information via LG's mobile app.
|
| On models with WiFi Smart Diagnosis does indeed use WiFi.
|
| On models without WiFi it uses sound. The washing machine plays
| sounds that sound similar to the sounds that acoustic modems made
| back in the pre-broadband internet days. Their mobile app listens
| to those and extracts the diagnostics data.
| notpachet wrote:
| > On models without WiFi it uses sound. The washing machine
| plays sounds that sound similar to the sounds that acoustic
| modems made back in the pre-broadband internet days. Their
| mobile app listens to those and extracts the diagnostics data.
|
| That's actually pretty cool! I think we should use this for
| more stuff to help usher in the R2-D2 future.
| f1refly wrote:
| There was a company called chirp who offered an sdk for this,
| they also had fun proof of concept apps where you could share
| arbitrary data to people around you via sound. They
| eventually got bought by sonos and their offerings
| vanished...
| lukasb wrote:
| can't you just plug it in and never configure the wifi?
| chillingeffect wrote:
| Title clickbait. Please remove article.
| simonblack wrote:
| It's the Russians.
|
| They've run out of their own washing-machine chips to re-use in
| their missiles, so they've found a way to hack into washing-
| machines all over the world and use those millions of chips to
| guide their missiles instead.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-13 23:00 UTC)