[HN Gopher] Is It Dry Yet?
___________________________________________________________________
Is It Dry Yet?
Author : badgerbbbadger
Score : 78 points
Date : 2024-04-10 12:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (badgerbadgerbadgerbadger.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (badgerbadgerbadgerbadger.dev)
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| I got tired of my dryer being dumb.
| 0x457 wrote:
| They do sell dryers and washers that can notify you. HN crowd
| probably doesn't like those because "OMG why does it need
| internet?".
|
| They don't even cost that much compared to ones that aren't
| connected.
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| We did look into such dryers as well but my girlfriend and I
| wanted to use our ecocheques and we also wanted a cheap dryer
| that just got the job done. The nearest smart dryer was at
| least a 100 euros more expensive.
|
| And it ended up being a fun project for me ^.^
| rrauenza wrote:
| I wonder if you could have done it like a motion sensor scheme.
|
| If you consume 100watts, reset a countdown timer. So as home
| assistant polls the outlet, it should keep resetting the timer.
| If the timer expires, then notify that the dryer is done.
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| That might be a smarter way to do it! Right now I have this
| thing where if we don't unload the dryer it does a sort of
| warming cycle every 20 minutes or so. And that triggers
| another alert. We don't mind because that just means we
| _should_ unload the dryer to stop it from consuming more
| power.
|
| But I suppose the countdown approach would still trigger the
| same thing. I suppose if I didn't really want the extra
| alerts I should be monitoring the duration of power
| consumption and exclude the ones that are of a shorter
| duration.
|
| I might try the countdown approach for something different
| and see what results I get. Thanks for the idea!
| rrauenza wrote:
| You're welcome! I installed home assistant about a month
| ago and have been really liking it ...
|
| I was thinking of doing something similar to what you are
| dong but was trying to think of how to do it without the
| custom virtual device.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Does Home Assistant support Apprise notifications? For my
| automation system I have a box where you can enter an Apprise
| target, and get notified with the nfty.sh app.
|
| It's really nice because the channel name is the password,
| there's no API key or sign up needed.
|
| I like Zrok a lot for true remote access, it seems to do
| something similar to what tailscale is doing there, but it's
| powered by some decentralized tech that seems to leave open the
| possibility of having the tunnel endpoint in a phone app so it
| still works on isolated LANs.
|
| Of course this is all theoretical, since in practice I keep my
| personal everyday practical tech a bit more off the shelf, I just
| put a YoLink vibration sensor on the dryer.
| switch007 wrote:
| https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/apprise/ seems so
| CraftThatBlock wrote:
| Yes, it has an integration for Apprise. You can also just use
| the Home Assistant mobile app to receive notifications on your
| device.
| bfdm wrote:
| Hah, facing a similar gripe so enjoyed this.
| Unfortunately/thankfully the dryer is on its last legs too, so
| will likely be replaced by the smart washer sibling unit later
| this year.
| apercu wrote:
| My experience with "smart" driers is maybe less positive than
| others. Seems they typically only have one sensor in a rotating
| drum, if they "read" a t-shirt they will stop because it's "dry".
| But your jeans and your towel are not. Or, the sensors become
| intermittent, so you stop using the "smart" features.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I would naively assume the sensor would be a hygrometer
| measuring the humidity of the outgoing air. What kind of dryer
| do you have?
| r2_pilot wrote:
| It's not naive and that's how many of them work.
| sroussey wrote:
| Mine has no outgoing air...
| HankB99 wrote:
| Where does the water go?
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Into the house, clearly. Hopefully their air conditioning
| removes humidity too.
| np- wrote:
| Ventless driers typically use a condenser to pull out the
| humidity, condense it into water, and drain it into the
| same drain your washer uses. If it's working correctly,
| the humidity shouldn't be going into the air.
| porphyra wrote:
| That's not it. The moisture sensor is two strips of metal on
| the inside of the dryer door that measure the conductivity
| between them or something.
| mhink wrote:
| For what it's worth, my understanding is that it's generally
| not recommended to wash/dry different kinds of fabric together.
| pstrateman wrote:
| Yes before drying my clothes I'm sure to blend them to a
| consistent mush.
| nan60 wrote:
| Mine does exactly this and it frustrates my family and I to no
| end. More often than not clothes are not dry and I'll just end
| up putting them through a speed dry cycle because that one
| doesn't turn off automatically (which completely defeats the
| purpose as I'm running through more cycles than needed)
| porphyra wrote:
| Even when I have a single blanket, it stops after a few minutes
| because one corner of it is dry while the inside is wet. I've
| had many loads develop mildew as a result. For large items even
| the "bulk load" setting with the max dryness doesn't reliably
| dry them throughout --- I have to manually put in "time dry"
| which is only accessible through the app.
| smilingsun wrote:
| The cool thing about water is that evaporates all by itself. For
| free even. No electricity is required.
|
| So an alternative to making the tumble dryer "smarter" can be to
| simply not use it for most of the time, thereby cutting the loss
| caused by "dumb" dryers.
|
| The engineering part that's missing is related to re-introducing
| and improving the many awesome laundry line systems that used to
| be available.
| smegger001 wrote:
| Hanging clothes on a clothes line to dry only works you dont
| live somewhere with frequent rain
| dartos wrote:
| Or very high ambient humidity (which I guess causes frequent
| rain)
| sroussey wrote:
| I've been places where cotton _never_ dries and becomes a
| fertile ground for all sorts of things.
| yorwba wrote:
| It works just fine indoors.
| big_man_ting wrote:
| How about you hang your clothes indoors when it's raining
| inside? I've been doing that for years in a rainy country in
| a tiny studio apartment. No issues.
| CalRobert wrote:
| This can cause issues with damp depending on your home and
| the local weather.
| ajuc wrote:
| The water that was in your clothes and evaporated over 12
| hours at night naturally is the same water that
| evaporates in 1 hour in the powered dryer.
|
| If you have working ventillation you're fine either way.
| If not - you're not. In fact I'd expect worse problems if
| you evaporate that same water quicker, because there's
| less time for it to escape outside.
| lolinder wrote:
| Dryers typically are vented immediately outside via a
| dedicated tube and vent. That means that the air in the
| rest of the house never sees the moisture at all, so your
| whole-house ventilation system or dehumidifier doesn't
| need to work as hard.
| ajuc wrote:
| Thanks, now that I think about it that makes sense :)
| CalRobert wrote:
| Some driers, especially in Europe, condense the water in
| to a tank that you empty manually in to a sink. This is
| useful if you don't have an easy way to vent it and also
| shows just how much water is coming out of your clothes
| (multiple liters per load, sometimes!)
| powersnail wrote:
| Usually dryers are connected to dedicated ventilation out
| of the house, so the humidity doesn't transfer into your
| room directly. Otherwise, the laundry room would be a
| sauna.
| ponector wrote:
| If your room has already high humidity level water does
| evaporate really slow and the next day you get smelly
| clothes.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Dehumidifiers are pretty affordable and warms up your
| room a little. Still doesn't solve the fact you need to
| ventilate your home. If you can - isolate your drying to
| a non living space.
| powersnail wrote:
| Still dependent on the overall climate. It's not
| necessarily about how much it rains, but how humid the air
| is. When I was in Virginia, it rained a lot, but the air
| clears up fairly quickly after rain.
|
| In contrast, my grandmother lives in a village with such
| incredible rainy seasons, that this has been a pain point
| as perpetual as the rain itself. For a few months in
| summer, the air is so humid that even unused clothes have
| trouble stay dry. Condensation appears on the wall, and
| nothing ever dries, no matter where you hang them; indoors,
| outdoors, doesn't make a difference. Sometimes, they have
| no dry clothes for weeks during summer.
| ajuc wrote:
| Where I live most people have special pulley systems in their
| bathrooms for drying clothes. Sth like this: https://m.media-
| amazon.com/images/I/61sYCKX1U6L._AC_UF1000,1...
|
| You put your clothes there, and the next day they are dry.
|
| Other common solution is collapsible drying racks on your
| balcony: https://images.morele.net/i256/12998234_0_i256.jpg
|
| Or just clothes lines (but usually people have some backup in
| case it rains).
|
| I've never seen people use powered dryers for clothes. And we
| get our share of rain, and in the winter it gets to -20C
| sometimes.
| CalRobert wrote:
| One of the issues is that tossing your stuff in the dryer is
| fast and easy. Hanging clothes to dry is kind of tedious. It
| also tends to result in crinkly clothes (especially shirts and
| towels). But I am curious about these laundry line systems you
| mention!
| smilingsun wrote:
| Here's a great example of putting a bit of engineering into
| hanging clothes outdoors:
| https://99percentinvisible.org/article/hills-hoist-iconic-
| ro...
|
| I've seen many great things in photos where laundry lines are
| strapped out between windows and across streets "ad hoc". But
| most of them were in photos. I think the "pulley" that
| carries the line and the line itself seem to be more durable
| than what my local building market sells... I can only get
| nylon lines and small pulleys, so I'm not happy with the
| projects I've done so far. The best lines I've found are the
| ones with metal wire inside.. the ones without metal in them
| break very quickly.
|
| One that I would really like to have is a strong, durable
| multi-line rack that sits below a window. If possible, I'd
| like to be able to expand and contract it.
|
| There's also a lot of ideas shared online for creative indoor
| solutions.
|
| In general, Pinterest is the place to go.
|
| Indoors: https://www.houzz.com.au/magazine/designs-for-
| living-10-dryi...
|
| Regarding crinkly clothes: generally if you hang up a wet
| shirt to dry, it gets less crinkly than in a tumble drier.
| That's an old tip for reducing ironing efforts :)
|
| Regarding "hard" towels etc: This one is really difficult,
| especially terrycloth and similar material that's supposed to
| be very soft can seem hard after air drying. You can try to
| add vinegar as a softener if your water is hard, I find that
| makes a good improvement. And you can generally rub clothes
| soft - I tried folding towels and give it a good rubbing,
| works well to soften them up. I would also remark that after
| using a soft towel once and drying it, the terrycloth also
| becomes hard :)
| CalRobert wrote:
| All good points, but definitely more time consuming than
| "throw in dryer, take out an hour later".
|
| If you're even lazier you can get a combo washer/dryer. Not
| quite as effective as a separate dryer but it's nice to
| have dirty clothes go in and clean, dry clothes come out
| without a middle step.
| blowski wrote:
| Many British houses are already damp and small, and heating
| them to dry clothes doesn't save energy. Putting clothes
| outside when it's -2 degrees or raining consistently also
| doesn't help.
|
| I think I've seen the kinds of indoor drying lines you are
| perhaps referring to, but I don't know how compatible they are
| with Northern Europe.
| bennyhill wrote:
| Drying in freezing temperatures actually works just fine, wet
| environments are really a problem though.
| ajuc wrote:
| Dunno what counts as "Northern Europe", but in Poland nobody
| uses powered dryers, it's all natural. And it gets to -20 C
| in the winter here sometimes. Dry cold is not actually a
| problem for drying clothes.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Never heard of this. Doesn't the moisture just freeze in
| the clothes?
| gspencley wrote:
| I think that there are two assumptions that we tend to
| make that causes the idea of air drying frozen clothes to
| be unintuitive:
|
| 1. We don't expect solids to evaporate, because it's not
| something we notice often (though if you think about the
| fact that a few inches of snow can disappear in a couple
| of days while the temperature remains below zero Celsius,
| you suddenly realize that you do observe it if you live
| in a cold climate)
|
| 2. We're so accustomed to using heat to speed the
| evaporation of water. So we might assume that removing
| large amounts of heat energy will "stop" evaporation. Or
| at least cause it to slow so much that air drying becomes
| impractical.
|
| But ice does, indeed evaporate (to be accurate, it
| sublimates). My question is how temperature affects the
| speed of evaporation at low temperatures. How long do you
| need to leave your wet clothes hanging below freezing
| before they are dry?
|
| https://phys.org/news/2018-10-sublimation-solid-ice-
| quickly-...
| LegitShady wrote:
| I live in a place where there is ice outside all winter.
| During winter the cold air can't hold moisture as much as
| hot air and most of the days are at 100% humidity even at
| -20 because the air simply can't hold more.
|
| I might try this out on the deck next season but I don't
| assume ice is just going to sublimate away because it's
| literally outside all winter and doesn't go anywhere.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| > We don't expect solids to evaporate, because it's not
| something we notice often
|
| Although most people have a freezer that needs to be
| deiced occasionally.
|
| Particularly, if they have an ice cube tray in their
| freezer... and, somehow, the ice cubes in the tray slowly
| shrink.
| ajuc wrote:
| They evaporate faster in the cold, because the air is
| very dry when it's very cold. Or sublimate I guess? In
| any case they usually don't freeze unless they are very
| wet (which rarely happens - people use washing machines
| that rotate very fast for the last few minutes of washing
| to remove most of the water mechanically).
|
| And when they do freeze it's not like cloth encased in
| ice, it's more like the clothes still look and feel dry -
| they just hold their shape :) If you put them at room
| temperature they finish drying within minutes.
| blowski wrote:
| Thanks for the correction on that. In the UK cold and damp
| go together, and I'd always assumed you can't dry clothes
| because of the cold.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>but in Poland nobody uses powered dryers
|
| I'm Polish and we've always had a dryer at home, no idea
| how my mum would have gone through that pile of loundry she
| always did otherwise. So YMMV.
|
| And the problem in the UK is that relative humidy is so
| high you literally start getting mold inside your house if
| you just use an airing dryer, as most people do, a lot of
| houses have that characteristic "musky" smell because they
| are just too damp. In poland the air is a lot
| dryer(especially in winter!) so you don't get this problem.
| cyberax wrote:
| Clothes can dry just fine when it's -30C outside, especially
| if there's some sunlight. It's the humidity that is a
| problem.
| xandrius wrote:
| Really depends on a million factors.
|
| Where I grew up if you left the clothes out (but covered with
| inclement weather), depending on season, they would either dry
| perfectly or get a funky (awful) smell to them. I wish we had a
| drier back then, it would have made my teenage years less
| embarrassing.
| pxc wrote:
| > The engineering part that's missing is related to re-
| introducing and improving the many awesome laundry line systems
| that used to be available.
|
| I live in a desert, and my current place has a not-tiny yard,
| so I'm curious about this. Anyone got examples or pictures of
| laundry line systems they really like?
| lolinder wrote:
| > thereby cutting the loss caused by "dumb" dryers.
|
| The loss that TFA and smart dryers are trying to cut is time
| spent on laundry. Having lived both with and without a tumble
| dryer, I'm very skeptical that there's a laundry line system
| out there that is less time consuming than even a dumb tumble
| dryer.
|
| If there is one, I'd love a link!
| latentcall wrote:
| We have clothes lines in our backyard and hang drying clothing
| is the bees knees. For one, dryers tend to ruin clothing. When
| I didn't know any better I'd dry black t-shirts on lowest heat
| setting and they're all washed out and didn't keep their color.
|
| For some items like wool underwear and t-shirts I hang inside
| because sun bleaching can be a problem.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Sun bleaches black clothing too. Plus it's essentially 2-3
| extra steps. A good quality 2 in 1 washer/dryer in a bad
| climate/limited space is a perfect fit for busy people.
| kkfx wrote:
| This is a good example why I hate both 99% of IoT available on
| sale AND HA as well... Anything simple demand a wall of text,
| convoluted reasoning, absent or badly documented stuff and so on.
|
| This is a similar example JUST to get a water leak notification
| from a user-friendly device (by user friendly means no crappy
| proprietary protocols and services imposed, local as a first
| class usage etc) https://kfx.fr/posts/shellyfloodandha/ and just
| to use such automation to automatically close a motorized valve
| witch actually just provide 4 power wires (ground, phase on
| "close", phase on "open" and "neutral) is another wall of YAML.
|
| Essentially 99% of commercial IoT seems to be designed just to
| impress illiterate people with colors and so on, not much
| differently than older merchants on "savage peoples" selling
| colored glass like gold, and without any ideas about a real
| practical usage and integration of useful features.
|
| Personally about most kitchen appliance I cry for maximizing p.v.
| self-consumption, since it's the sole technically sound way to
| use p.v., for instance ovens, dishwasher, washing machines,
| dryers can be "left ready to run" for a significant amount of
| time, all we need to maximize self-consumption is coordinate
| their power usage: ovens start to consume for a certain amount of
| time, than just keep hot with short time heating, washing
| machines tend to heat one or two time maximum for a certain
| (variable) amount of time, dishwasher tend to heat more times,
| but all can delay a bit their power loads, if they offer a cheap
| ModBUS or a less cheap but not so expensive MQTT card AS AN
| OPTION to be plugged behind the machine or even a kind of "smart
| plug" that actually just a local powerline device communicating
| to the internal electronics, coordinate their run from HA would
| be simple. No one seems to have though about such usage. Water
| heaters? Similarly, even most modern heat pump water heaters take
| into account just delaying consumption looking at grid energy
| price, no real integration with p.v., cars? Even worse: 99% of
| BEV support DC direct charging, actually most p.v. inverters
| supporting a battery support 400V batteries, the very same
| voltage of most cars nowadays, so why the hell not offer a simple
| home charge socket DC-to-DC to avoid double conversion DC-AC-DC
| with significant loss in the process? AFAIK only one vendor do
| so, but NOT integrated with any P.V. they just use "fast
| charging" as a bidirection bridge to offer V2H for cars do not
| support such usage (like MOST cars on sale).
| cjk2 wrote:
| Meh I just leave my shit in the dryer when it's done.
| xandrius wrote:
| This seems exactly the same approach as the rice cooker post.
| Maybe inspired?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39902207
| firloop wrote:
| Yes, I had the same thought. Suspicious or coincidental.
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| Coincidental. Probably a case of this being one of the
| simpler solutions to implement. Convergent problem solving?
| (like how in evolution different species can converge on the
| same trait?)
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| It wasn't inspired but thanks for the link! If I had known of
| the device notification integration, I would have just used
| that instead of trying to roll my own logic :D
| secabeen wrote:
| You also can take a lot of it out of the manual config by
| creating an input_select with various options to track the
| operational state of the dryer (Off, Drying, Finished), then
| use traditional automations to trigger switches between
| opstates and notifications based on opstate change. There are
| many threads on the HA forums and community about how to do
| this.
| bobchadwick wrote:
| I roughly followed this approach: https://community.home-
| assistant.io/t/clothes-dryer-automati.... It worked surprisingly
| well, but the battery died in the sensor and I guess I didn't see
| enough value in getting the notifications so I never bothered
| changing it.
| culebron21 wrote:
| Mechanical kitchen timer will suffice. You usually know the
| duration of most used programs. Doesn't need a hundred taps in
| the phone to get it working. Mental effort to set the timer is
| lower than with phone timer. You dial it and carry in a pocket.
| Zero distraction when you set it up or get notified -- you won't
| sink into the timer scrolling for half an hour. And in the end
| you'll get the notification.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Also not as fun or educational.
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| Mainly this. The project taught me a lot, was a good way to
| have material to work further on my blogging skills and will
| hopefully lay a foundation for more interesting projects in
| the future.
| reyostallenberg wrote:
| Working, but so boring. For some of us it's nice to build
| needles stuff instead of using a better (but boring) solution
| ;) I like the needles stuff, you like the mechanical 'easy'
| solution
| msrenee wrote:
| I was wondering what was going on in their life that the
| alert sound from the washer and dryer weren't sufficient for
| the purpose. My GE dryer sings a happy "laundry's dry" song
| when it's finished.
|
| You're right though, this way is more fun.
| calfuris wrote:
| Laundry machines are not always positioned where they will
| be easily heard.
| culebron21 wrote:
| A big house, with a separate room for laundry machine, I
| guess. Or maybe it's in the basement.
| msrenee wrote:
| Mine's in my basement and I hear it fine. I'm sure plenty
| of people on this site have bigger houses than mine
| though.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I wear noise cancelling headphones and can't hear anything.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I would need to remember to set the timer every time.
|
| This solution is fully automated.
| mbil wrote:
| Hah, this reminds me of one of the first programs I wrote for
| personal use. My Macbook at the time had an accelerometer or gyro
| of some kind. So I made a program to monitor the output from that
| sensor, and it would send me an email when the motion stopped.
| I'd run the program, set the laptop on top of my running dryer,
| and go upstairs. In retrospect it was probably not smart to leave
| a laptop on top of the dryer for an hour :)
| badgerbbbadger wrote:
| This is one of the most bodgy things I've come across and I
| love it! Did you end up replacing it with something else?
| mbil wrote:
| Ended up just replacing it with a timer, which was good
| enough. The main reason was that I wanted to use my computer
| while the laundry was drying.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Sudden motion sensor for detecting klonks from eg. a fall so
| the HDD can put the heads somewhere safer. It was also used to
| generate lightsaber sounds: https://youtu.be/phcXNisiD8w
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Make an app that does this and people can tape their old cell
| phone to it and report. Could just work with sound if no
| accelerometer/gyro.
| marcinzm wrote:
| I did something similar except I used a vibration sensor since we
| have shared laundry for the floor. When doing laundry we take the
| sensor and then stick it, using the magnets glued to the back,
| onto the dryer/washer. The distance drops the signal strength of
| the sensor which is what tells the automation that clothes
| washing/drying is in progress. Once vibration has stopped it
| knows that the laundry is done. Alexa then loudly notifies us of
| it (great fun if it happens in the middle of an interview) and
| the e-paper display in the living room shows an alert so we don't
| forget.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Is that a product you bought or something you made yourself?
| I've been wanting something like that but haven't figured out
| how to get it
| marcinzm wrote:
| I used a YoLink vibration sensor. The lack of a local mode
| for YoLink is a big negative but there's also Zigbee
| vibrations sensors. The positive is that in my experience
| YoLink has been very reliable across the board while Zigbee
| has been hit or miss. Also unlike other cloud based services
| (ie: Kasa for example) they provide a MQTT integration so
| there's very low latency.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Thanks; I actually do prefer zigbee, but that tells me what
| I'm looking for
| pengaru wrote:
| smart, you could probably do the same thing with a cheap
| piezoelectric microphone / transducer (actually I wouldn't be
| surprised if a vibration sensor is basically just that) plugged
| into an audio line-in port on an RPi running the show.
| jchw wrote:
| I've wanted to do this sort of thing for a while, but I am a bit
| concerned about using many of the smart plugs on the market with
| large motors, and I assume most dryers contain a fairly large
| electric motor (not sure how large.) I'm in the midwest U.S., so
| my dryer is a gas dryer; so presumably, the only real thing being
| driven off the electricity is indeed a micro-controller and a
| fairly large motor of some kind.
|
| I can find _very_ few smart plugs that specifically advertise the
| ability to handle inductive loads, which makes a ton of sense of
| course, since I think that winds up needing relatively expensive
| MOSFETs and circuit design more advanced than I can really
| understand to be robust. I think the best recommendation I 've
| seen is to simply _not_ use smart plugs for inductive loads at
| all, and instead use other methods to either measure current or
| implement switching.
|
| I'm a bit afraid to use most any of these smart plugs. I have a
| couple Zigbee ones that seem to work fine but I am only trusting
| them with relatively small resistive loads for now since it feels
| dicey to put anything serious on them.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > and instead use other methods to either measure current or
| implement switching.
|
| Yeah, I keep meaning to look at clamp style measurement. That
| doesn't give you control, of course, but I'm mostly interested
| in finding out how much power larger appliances are actually
| using (my dryer is pure electric).
| chongli wrote:
| A current clamp meter will not tell you anything unless you
| break out the individual wires you want to measure. Having
| both live and neutral running through the clamp will cause
| the electric field of the neutral to cancel out the field of
| the live whenever the device draws current, so the meter will
| be unable to read anything.
| jchw wrote:
| This isn't too big of a deal since at least around here,
| appliances tend to be wired with screw terminals. So, in a
| lot of cases there actually is a separate place to measure
| hot and neutral without any terrible hacks. (Not sure if
| that applies to my dryer, though: I should check.)
| chongli wrote:
| My dryer (I live in Canada) has a 240V plug with a heavy-
| duty cable, no exposed wires. My dishwasher is wired
| directly into the mains (I installed it myself) but
| neither the laundry washer nor the dryer are hard-wired.
| wtallis wrote:
| Your dryer may have screw terminals at the other end of
| the power cable: those are often sold separately and
| installed when you take delivery of the dryer, because
| there are multiple types of outlets your home could have
| for an electric dryer.
| chongli wrote:
| If there are screw terminals they are internal to the
| machine. The power cable goes directly into the machine
| with no exposed terminals.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean, no not really. Take off the plate where the wire
| goes into the machine and there is a terminal block at
| that point. Unless you have some very odd machine I have
| never (and I've installed quite a few machines) seen one
| that comes with the wire.
| chongli wrote:
| I watched the delivery guys install the machine. They
| brought it into the laundry room, took the packaging off,
| hooked up the flexible ventilation duct, and plugged it
| in. They didn't do any wiring.
|
| I'm in Canada (as I said at the top of this thread). Are
| you in the US? Perhaps it's different there.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > My dishwasher is wired directly into the mains (I
| installed it myself) but neither the laundry washer nor
| the dryer are hard-wired.
|
| You probably have an "American" dishwasher like a GE or
| Whirlpool. If you upgrade to a "European" one like a
| Bosch or Miele, you'll need to wire up a socket in an
| adjacent cabinet and plug it in, or buy their ~$50
| junction box.
|
| The Europeans like to move with their appliances instead
| of leave them in place. It's another reason for their big
| kitchen appliances like fridges being smaller: so it's
| easier to move and it will fit wherever you move next.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| We just installed a new kitchen that replaced our old and
| were told that appliances like fridges and microwaves
| need to be plugged into an accessible wall socket, due to
| safety regulations. We even needed to move a few in-wall
| mains sockets to accomplish that. The 2F 7kW induction
| furnace is hard wired though.
|
| That said, in either case it should not be hard to single
| out an L or N wire and clamp it to detect flowing
| current. However a vibration or acoustic sensor is
| probably easier and cheaper.
| kabouseng wrote:
| You can either wire a relay yourself, your smart plug just
| switches the relay, and you can size the relay according to
| your needs.
|
| Or use smart switches made for geysers. Something like the
| sonoff pow3 can handle up to 5.5kW. Since it is just a relay
| inside I am pretty sure it can handle inductive loads fine.
|
| https://sonoff.tech/product/diy-smart-switches/powr3/
| MisterBiggs wrote:
| I tried automating a portable A/C unit using a smart plug and I
| can confirm that the large power draw will eventually burn them
| out. The post does mention Shelly which is a brand I would
| trust for this sort of thing assuming they have a product with
| the right rating.
| js2 wrote:
| Some folks have success with vibration sensors:
|
| https://community.home-assistant.io/t/blue-print-to-work-wit...
| chongli wrote:
| I don't think it's an issue for this application with a dryer
| because it's not cutting power to a running motor.
|
| The problem with switching an inductive load using a small
| relay (like the ones in smart plugs) is that the magnetic field
| collapses in the motor as soon as the relay contacts open. This
| causes a very large flyback voltage to build across the
| contacts as the relay is still in the process of opening
| (mechanically driven by a spring) and so you get arcing which
| damages the contacts and results in carbon deposits (with
| higher resistance than clean metal).
|
| In this application the smart plug is already switched on
| (contacts closed) when the dryer is started and the smart plug
| doesn't switch off while the dryer is running. Instead, the
| smart plug's only job is to monitor the power usage of the
| dryer and send a notification when it drops below 10W.
| jchw wrote:
| Hmmm.... That's a valid point that I didn't consider. I guess
| if the relay remains closed all the time, inductive loads
| shouldn't really be any trouble. It still does seem a little
| sketchy, though.
| hinkley wrote:
| Gas dryers often run 120V because they're only running a small
| blower and a motor to spin the drum. You're probably in much
| better shape to find an inline unit that can handle that
| amperage.
|
| First gas dryer I could find at best buy: LG 7.4 cu ft (beefy
| boy) needs 11.5 amps. I'd be shocked if you can't find a 15A
| smart plug.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Temperature sensor, tape it to the exhaust duct, when temp
| falls below X for Y minutes, send an alert, sleep until temp
| rises above Z.
|
| Super simple, cannot be fooled if your values for XYZ are set
| appropriately.
| amelius wrote:
| I love the enormous artistic effort the author put in the images.
| seeknotfind wrote:
| All 3.8MB of the cover image are appreciated by me :)
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| There are two cover images on the page, for 8.3MB total. It's
| pretty wild.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Is it not just the output of some "laundry room in the style of
| Van Gogh" prompt? Looks great, just not sure that's an
| indication of effort these days. Several non-sensical sections
| aren't cleaned up for example.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I really like the fact that the inside of the dryer is deeper
| than the housing of the unit itself. If we're going magical,
| let's just go full on magician's hat, Felix's bag of trix (or
| Harry Potter for those too young for Felix).
| williamcotton wrote:
| Would you be as salty if it was free clipart or stock photos?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| If the free clipart or stock photos were 8.3 megabytes for
| two images on the web that don't add any meaning to the page?
| Yes.
| williamcotton wrote:
| That's not the context of the original comment.
|
| The subtext with which to understand both of our comments
| is the clearly recognizable generative image from an LLM.
|
| For some reason it is completely acceptable on these forums
| to trash talk people who use LLMs, or even more
| problematic, to disparagingly accuse someone of sounding
| like an LLM.
|
| I assume because it is based on the idea that using an LLM
| is low effort which is why I mentioned different kinds of
| low effort images that are not often criticized.
| numpad0 wrote:
| For me personally it just gives me the uncanny valley
| effect. That's also a succinct and plausible explanation
| to GenAI objections, than the idea that using LLMs are
| ..., it's just that it's not there yet.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| We decided to buy fancy WiFi washer and dryer for our new house.
| Apparently to meet the latest bullshit energy requirements, our
| dryer does so by _not completely drying things_.
|
| So now I put it on timed dry, and that means I can just start a
| 60 minute timer on my watch.
| valicord wrote:
| Not to knock other people's hobbies, but our dryer plays a loud
| jingle when done, no Internet connection required. Do other
| models not have this feature?
| fragmede wrote:
| How loud is that jingle, and how small is your house? for some,
| the dryer is located in a basement, far away enough that no
| such jingle, or buzzer can be heard in the rest of the house.
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| Solution is quite simple - rewire the dryer's jingle circuit
| to electrically trigger play for a pre-recorded "Hey Alexa!
| Notify my owner that drying is complete" cassette record on
| an old portable Walkman. Install Amazon speaker nearby to
| react on this.
| valicord wrote:
| Fairly loud and fairly large (can be heard on another floor),
| but I'll admit I didn't consider the basement scenario (since
| I don't have one)
| astura wrote:
| Most do, but basements and garages are a common location for
| dryers, both are usually out of the way enough that it's very
| difficult to hear the sound in the living quarters.
| gavinsyancey wrote:
| This is a common feature, but somehow mine does not do this. I
| didn't pick it out; my landlord did. Not surprised they cheaped
| out on literally everything.
| dfc wrote:
| The thing that I am not sure of is why it's so important to
| know when the dryer finishes? And if it's that important how
| does it slip your mind that the 45 dryer cycle started at the
| top of the hour?
|
| Is it a kids thing?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| "Modern" dryers will vary their run time and stop once they
| stop sensing some threshold of humidity in exhaust air.
|
| A load of jeans will take longer than a polyester shirt load.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Simple solution is to place a temperature probe on the
| exhaust duct and alert based on that. That's what I'm doing
| and it never fails.
|
| My dryer beeps, but, it's in the garage, so, impossible to
| hear.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Wrinkles. If you yank your clothes out of the dryer and get
| them hung while they're still warm, they don't wrinkle nearly
| as much than if you let them cool down in a heap in the
| drier.
|
| 45 minutes is more than enough time to get thoroughly
| engrossed in a myriad of activities, so, easy to forget, and
| not all drier cycles are predictable. Timed dry is, but,
| anything smarter than that isn't (and most driers still in
| service are smarter).
| andrewfromx wrote:
| definitely thought this was about code and "don't repeat
| yourself". I thought it was going to talk about how it's not
| necessary to make sure your code is 100% dry it's ok to repeat
| yourself sometimes. Which it is. Specially while waiting your
| clothes to dry.
| NortySpock wrote:
| For those wanting this convenience on a dumb washing machine, I
| used a single smart plug flashed with Tasmota firmware to monitor
| when the power draw dropped to zero. Notifications through Home
| Assistant.
|
| Not affiliated, just a happy customer of:
|
| https://cloudfree.shop/product/cloudfree-smart-plug-runs-tas...
| thechao wrote:
| CloudFree is great, but I wish I'd been able to pitch the name
| 'clearsky' to them. I _hate_ , I do mean _loathe_ , all of
| these cloudy smart things. So... I'm pretty pleased you posted
| this. Now, I just gotta figure out what the heck "Tasmota" is.
| mewse-hn wrote:
| My experience was Tasmota:
|
| I won some smart plugs at a work event, and I'm not a smart
| home guy so I brought them home and figured out how to set
| them up. They required a vendor specific smartphone app. I
| was less than impressed. I wouldn't be able to set up any
| automations because this thing had to dial home to some
| shitty vendor cloud lock-in thing.
|
| I looked into how to load open firmware onto the smart
| switches, and I discovered I'd basically have to destroy the
| plastic shell of the device to get access to the circuit
| board, desolder the wifi control module and solder in a new
| module that was compatible with Tasmota, which is the
| standard open source firmware for these devices.
|
| What was much easier was to buy Sonoff S31 smart switches
| because they are able to be disassembled without cutting and
| grinding the shell away. Then I reprogrammed them using a 3d
| printed clip with pogo pins - flashing the Tasmota firmware
| so that I could do whatever I wanted with them.
|
| Easier still would be to buy smart plugs with Tasmota pre-
| flashed.
| deadbunny wrote:
| For the UK folks I've bought some pre-flashes plugs from
| https://www.mylocalbytes.com/ and been happy.
| birdman3131 wrote:
| Now I understand using HA if you are trying to keep it all off
| the internet but this is all doable in the shelly app itself.
|
| May be a better way of doing it but off hand you can do it with 2
| scenes.
|
| Scene 1. If power consumption > 100w for 5 minutes turn scene 2
| on.
|
| Scene 2. If power draw less than 5w for more than a minute. send
| notification to phone. Turn off scene 2.
| time0ut wrote:
| Cool hack and enjoyable read.
|
| The smart plug idea is slick. I like the idea of decoupling the
| smart from the appliance. I'd much rather all my appliances be
| dumb.
|
| In the US, you'd have to get a 240 volt smart plug. Are there any
| reputable ones?
|
| For the laundry use case, I just set an alarm on my phone
| though...
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > In the US, you'd have to get a 240 volt smart plug
|
| For the 75% that use electric. 25% use gas with 120V
| motor/control.
| JohnTheNerd wrote:
| If you are scared of messing with electricity like I am, instead
| of using power monitoring, another viable but less reliable
| option is to use vibration sensors.
|
| I picked up a simple Zigbee vibration sensor for less than 20$,
| taped it on top of the washer/dryer, and connected it to
| HomeAssistant using Zigbee2MQTT. After creating two automations
| to detect start/stop based on continuous vibrations over a few
| minutes, I had the notifications working the exact same way.
| hinkley wrote:
| I don't know about economical but there are devices that sense
| current flow in a line without a tap, just from the EM fields.
| People with wood shops use these to automatically turn on the
| dust collection system when any power tool is turned on.
|
| Between small production sizes and the relay there are probably
| cheaper DIY solutions. OP is just using a smart plug, so no
| real electronics involved.
| gambiting wrote:
| The problem with those is that they only work if they are
| wrapped around a live wire, not live and neutral. So unless
| you have exposed L/N wires in your cable, it's not going to
| work at all.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| These clamp on systems may not work too well on North
| American 240V circuits like a dryer since the emf will
| cancel, no? You have two 120V feeds exactly 180 degrees out
| of phase with eachother. Unless you unravel the wires a bit
| and just clamp a single conductor.
|
| Or maybe I have this all wrong.
| jtriangle wrote:
| You are correct, current clamps can't read accurately in
| this situation. All you'll get is any disparity between the
| phases, which, will be small.
|
| That said, it's probably worth a try, because it's likely
| that internally the drier's control circuits are only
| tapping one leg, and you might be able to read that, and it
| might change reliably enough to trigger an alert.
|
| Usually, you'd use a vibration sensor for this job however.
| You can also use a thermal sensor on the exhaust air,
| combined with a time delay (because they run
| cooldown/dewrinkle cycles), and you're good to go.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Huh, I thought 240V circuits used some sort of three-phase
| system.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| I'm just staring at the artwork (dalle I'm assuming?)
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