Bosch!
I ran into the same situation. I specifically told the salesperson I didn't want wifi, and they told me it's only if you want it to operate from your phone.
I was done installing it and got rid of the packaging by the time I read that it needs to use their website for some functions.
Beside the fact that I doubt the store would take it back after using it for a week or two and havi go no packaging, I had no time nor energy to remove it and return it.
I tried to contact Bosch who keep redirecting me to some other I ternal department and eventually stop responding.
Do NOT buy a Bosch diswashe, even though you pay full price upfront you cannot use all the functions without creating an account on their website and have them run those functions for you.
I had sort of the opposite situation. I needed a new washer and all the top rated ones according to Consumer Reports included WiFi. I asked at Home Depot if the one I was thinking of getting, an LG WM3400CW, required me to actually use the WiFi and they said no.
I used it for a few weeks without ever even trying to set up WiFi and everything was fine.
Then I found at that when you set up an LG washer for WiFi you can get reports in the app of water and energy use. I'd actually like that, so decided to give it WiFi access.
I then found out that the WM3400CW does in fact not have WiFi. I think it might be the only current LG washing machine that does not have WiFi.
I suspect that Consumer Reports got confused because it does have LG's "Smart Diagnosis" feature, which gives you diagnostic reports in the LG app.
The way "Smart Diagnosis" in the app works with the WM3400CW is that the washing machine sends the data to the app acoustically. Press the button sequence to start a diagnosis on the washing machine and it sounds very similar to an old analog modem. The app listens to that with your phone's microphone.
Wouldn't it be great if a universal standard existed for devices sending their diagnosis via audio?
If there is a microcontroller and a beeper in there anyway, at only the extra cost of internal memory? Instead of a modem-type modulation and a speaker, make use of the bare minimum piezo beepers and send something that is universally understood? All of that without FCC, no extra hardware cost, no backchannel und thus little security considerations?
Yea - I know. Works much better to upsell "wifi enabled" and I'm happy that the appliances only beep rarely.
That reminds me of another thing I wish was a universal standard for major appliances.
I’d like to see them all have a USB port. If you plug in a thumb drive the appliance should create a directory named with the appliance manufacturer and model and serial number. In that directory it should place a copy of its manual and other documents that normally come with it.
...or just have device side usb port that shows up as a mass storage device?
That would be pretty inconvenient for appliances in places that are hard to reach with a computer, but definitely an improvement over the status quo.
An appliance could just have blutooth so it can connect to an app on your phone. With the machine not having a direct internet connection, the app can collect diagnostics, metrics and do software updates. Require you to press a button in the machine to pair it to your phone.
99% of the functionality with 0 annoyance and ~0 security/privacy risks.
But that still requires installing their app on a mobile device, and that app will still have invasive access to data and internet, etc. If we have to have an "app" I'd much rather it be a built-in web server (despite the inevitable security decay) that serves up a local-only web interface. Best scenario though is to just give me hardware controls and a simple display :-)
Apps require permissions and they can't just sniff the network willy nilly. Any IoT device on your network has way more access to privacy-related things than apps.
Why ?! Audio diagnostic is passive and (I suppose/hope) associated with a button (?).
Can we stop putting obligatory (hackable) active network devices everywhere ?
For basic diagnostics that is enough, but if you want to do more data-intensive stuff (including software updates) you need something more.
Yes! I've been thinking about bluetooth and a standard protocol and generic app. You'd get basic gui functionality for any compliant device, showing whatever device specific stuff the manufacturer wants.
Kinda of like a bluetooth X-terminal, but way way simpler. Think tkinter over bluetooth, probably sans canvas.
A bunch of people will say to just use wifi, make the device a Hotspot, and use your web browser. That's not a bad idea, but tiny devices aren't going to run web servers dishing out multi megabits frameworks.
> I've been thinking about bluetooth and a standard protocol and generic app.
A long time ago I developed a project called "Handbag[0] for Android"[1] based around a similar concept--it targeted the short-lived "Android Open Accessory Protocol" initially over USB & later also over network/WiFi.
(My project notes from the time mentioned a long-term goal of also supporting Bluetooth but that never eventuated...)
Handbag made use of a "generic" Android app for UI display/interaction and an Arduino library that communicated with the app over a binary protocol.
The app would display various UI widgets such as labels/progress bars to display feedback from the accessory and text inputs/buttons to accept input forwarded to the accessory.
While the project did not take the world by storm, I was reminded when digging up these links that at least one person called the concept genius[2]. :)
----
[0] Because it let you "accessorize your Android phone or tablet". :D
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20130205135845/http://handbagdev...
[2] https://www.doctormonk.com/2011/11/handbag-android-and-ardui...
If you afford a bluetooth chip you can definitely definitely afford a CPU that can push 2-5mb HTML files through it in reasonable time (you can pre-gzip it) and some flash storage (which you probably already need if you are any kind of metrics over time).
It could be hard to encode JSON messages dynamically for the actual data to show in the web application, but you _can_ use other protocols from a browser too (CBOR is quite popular for this).
>> If you afford a bluetooth chip you can definitely definitely afford a CPU that can push 2-5mb HTML files through it in reasonable time
Maybe not. I'm using a micro controller with specific peripherals and ADC requirements for a high speed control system. This has less RAM and flash that you can probably get away with for a web server. We'd have to add a bluetooth radio chip, but I hear those go for well under $1. There are all kinds of embedded devices that have few resources but could be expanded with cheap Bluetooth connectivity. I realize this is changing quickly, but there will always be very small devices.
Yes running a full blown web server with HTTP support requires a bigger CPU and RAM, but don't need a lot of RAM or CPU to stream an HTLM file through blutooth from flash storage. Serving data over blutooth for that HTML application would need some custom stuff (because it would go over blutooth and JSON-encoding for messages would probably require too many resources). My point is that it is definitely possible to serve a HTML file over blutooth, render it in a app through an WebView and have the app communicate to the device over blutooth without putting a beefy CPU in there.
The product I worked on the bluetooth chip was more expensive than the CPU if memory serves me right and we did something similar. But I am not a board designer or procurement expert.
Or flashing led and use mobile phone camera to scan it.
Back in the days infrared connection was a thing. I remember connecting my Compaq iPAQ PDA to Nokia phone.
Wonder if the modern cellphone cameras are fast enough to act as receiver and if this supported one way communication.
> Or flashing led and use mobile phone camera to scan it
Miele uses flashing LED as some sort of serial communication.
How about a wifi feature that is useful on a LAN and doesn't need 'the cloud'? The annoying part of wifi appliances is that network connectivity almost always means phoning home to some server on WAN. Home routers or a separate box on LAN ought to have functionality to be the bridge between appliances and client devices instead. That's a standard I'd rather see.
Because most people don't have anything on the LAN that can integrate with the appliance, and with just a phone app and the appliance, you're limited in computing power, background activity and storage (you can't store all usage data on the machine itself, and you can't rely on the phone always being on the same wifi to collect the data and store it).
"you can't store all usage data on the machine itself"
I can buy 128M flash for $2/10k
> Yea - I know. Works much better to upsell "wifi enabled"
A good marketer could give a catchy name to sell the advantages of that system too. Top of my head I can think of "near-fi", but certainly could be done better.
"Spyware and asbestos free"
Spyware, and asbestos free!
("Sugar, Free Donuts" - The Simpsons)
D'oh! I realize now, I should have wrote it as:
Spyware and asbestos, free!
This reminds me that Fischer & washing machines have an Easter egg where they can use that beeper to play God Defend New Zealand.
Or just codes that you can look up. Most washers have a small LCD screen capable of displaying two digits.
> Wouldn't it be great if a universal standard existed for devices sending their diagnosis via audio?
LG must have some internal standard for this feature. If they would just publish it and then that could be the standard.
Edit: to the downvotetards, if you worked in actual engineering like I do, then you would understand that this is how most standards naturally materialize. Someone does one thing particularly well, it becomes the standard.
No, that might be the beginning of the standard, because once it's published you realize they don't have a version number or vendor ID or any way to add fields other than the ones they hard coded or whatnot. But it's a start and it would be great if they did it!
> The way "Smart Diagnosis" in the app works with the WM3400CW is that the washing machine sends the data to the app acoustically.
My LG microwave has this too; it wasn't a selling point for me, but I thought it was a nice compromise by their engineers and product team.
This sounds like great use of technology if you ask me. The only thing I'd complain about is that data would not be E2E encrypted :)
In terms of a threat-risk analysis, the need of a physical microphone nearby i imagine more than makes up for the risk of an adversary knowing your water quality and electrical consumption as measured by your washer in almost everyones lives atleast..
It also indicates when you are home or out, and likely an estimate of how many people live there. It could collect more data.
Those pieces of data are combined with others, to form a full picture. This device doesn't need to collect it all itself.
Survellance of private citizens is arguably the foundation of the very dangerous problems in societies around the world, taking away freedom, health, peace, and for most, prosperity. When do you stop it?
If someone can get a bug into my home I'm pretty sure they already know how many people live there and whether we're home..
Ad if someone is bugging my home I think the data transfer from my dishwasher is quite literally the least of my worries.
> It also indicates when you are home or out
Yeah, being able to record sounds that the washer makes would probably also enable you to analyze things people say and extract much more information than 'how many people live there' and 'are they home or not'.
But fortunately for us, you need to actually press a physical button to make the machine sing the diagnostics..
I think you might have missed OPs point being about acoustically sending data rather than using bluetooth/WiFi.
If someone is close enough to your home to listen to your washing machine (or more likely, inside) they can probably hear/see you more directly.
> I think you might have missed OPs point being about acoustically sending data rather than using bluetooth/WiFi
I did! Thanks.
the use of customer-central water usage data piques my interest. there's a huge market for selling water and waste data to advertisers and other companies interested in consumer data. This is one of my friend's startups, smartpipes, which is a type of smart sewage pipe - these smart washers remind me of smartpipe (which supports dishwasher waste!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
Why can't it be E2E encrypted? If you can encode data on sound waves, surely you can encode encrypted data on sound waves.
Seems to me like the overhead it would add would way outweigh the benefit for the use case. I wouldn't want to wait an extra 10 seconds for the audio to finish transmitting every time just to prevent nonexistent spies in my kitchen from listening in.
The data/time overhead would be negligible. Engineering overhead to implement it on the other hand, perhaps not.
> The data/time overhead would be negligible.
Doubling or tripling the amount of data sent would be negligible over a wire, but an audio protocol won't be as snappy. Then there's the matter of trust/decryption. How are those keys being kept safe? What happens if I lose access?
You can encrypt data and keep the exact same original byte size.
If you're using symmetric encryption, sure. And then every dishwasher has the same symmetric key, guaranteeing it'll leak.
Everything uses symmetric encryption, including asymmetric encryption. Using symmetric encryption doesn't mean you'd use the same key for every dishwasher, you'd obviously just pair the devices and generate a new key, like everything does nowadays. Also, my dishwasher doesn't use any sort of encryption, and it still leaks.
That sounds perfect. This needs to go on a list for the next time I need to replace a dishwasher.
Smart diagnostic sounds good but make it available via Bluetooth or make the dishwasher run a webserver on the local lan.
Having to go through their site and their auth means they ultimately control the appliance I paid full price for.
> The way "Smart Diagnosis" in the app works with the WM3400CW is that the washing machine sends the data to the app acoustically. Press the button sequence to start a diagnosis on the washing machine and it sounds very similar to an old analog modem. The app listens to that with your phone's microphone.
This sounds far, far better to me - and just goes to show it's not necessary for everything to be connected to the Internet...
Why not just use Bluetooth? I'd be suspicious if the Dishwasher app requested permission to access the phone's microphone
You can implement an audio modem with much dumber hardware and it would be cheaper and less vulnerable to nonsense, especially if all you're sending is a few bytes. Then you also don't need to do FCC certification. Seriously bitbanging an audio modem to broadcast error codes from a $0.20 BOM microcontroller and a little buzzer speaker would be a fun project to give to a summer intern. (If anyone wants to believe a highly falsified resume and would believe I'm 15 years younger, I'd be happy to join your company for the summer :D <sadly not really> )
If your hardware has a clock >32Khz, you need FCC certification. It doesn't matter if it deliberately uses radio or not, last I checked.
For energy usage, a metering plug on the same outlet you use is very cheap. For water, just take the bendy pipe and put it onto a big container and see how much water it uses. It shouldn't change much so you do it once. Wifi and the whole cloud for this seems weird.
Acoustically? That's pretty neat and seems a lot less invasive, while still being useful.
I will high-jack this top-rated comment to link to a comment further below.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297
This comment has a link to [0], explaining, in plain text:
However, perhaps inline with the German attitudes towards privacy, the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key, but from then on the appliances can be operated entirely disconnected from the network.
> They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key
What does my offline dishwasher need a long-lived authorization key for?
I assume only if you're setting it up to work "offline" with the app. Issuing a key pair to the hardware and the app from their ecosystem's trusted authority does seem like a secure way to do it.
Why can't the dishwasher or phone generate that key though?
I’ll assume they use this to “register” your product so they know when the warranty actually started.
Maybe it has some embargoed technology and needs to make sure it's not in China or something.
IANAL but I'm pretty sure the issue is distribution, so as long as they don't sell their dishwasher in China it isn't their problem. If someone buys and resells it in China then the reseller is in trouble. (Obviously it is a bit more complicated if they should know about this reselling but it shouldn't require online activation.)
Cool. I’d still prefer a “no wifi” or even “no app” mode, and control everything via hardware buttons.
Hardware offline UX gives me hope that my data would not be sold or that I wouldn’t have to pay for an extra subscription or watch ads. Perhaps it’s correlation.
Still, “no cloud” is a step in the right direction; I’ll take it.
Jeff mentions it in the post:
> Another third option is somebody has reverse engineered this protocol and built HCPY, a Home Connect Python library.
> But here's the problem: I already spent like four hours getting this dishwasher installed in my kitchen. I don't want to spend another four hours configuring my own web UI for it—which still requires at least a one-time connection through Home Connect!—and maintaining that as a service on my local network, relying on an unauthorized third party library using reverse-engineering to get at the private dishwasher API!
That's an improvement, but the requirement to use an app is still a serious problem, even if it never phones home. Everything should be able to be done on the appliance itself. Installing an app should never be a requirement.
I disagree. Moving stuff to an API with full local control is a UI decision. Moving it to the cloud is a privacy and obsolescence decision. Huge difference.
Using an app has inherent security implications (it's very, very hard to trust apps). However, I agree that in terms of security, using an app with local control is better than something cloud-connected.
My primary issue with requiring the use of an app is that apps are a pain in the ass. Allow the use of an app as an option, sure, but the appliances should be able to be fully used with the controls on the appliance itself as well. Requiring the use of an app is a dealbreaker for me, but for usability reasons more than security reasons.
...how long is "long-live" ?
We've all been there. It works, until the shareholders decide differently, and you can no longer use your dishwasher without connecting / agreeing to the terms.
The shareholder of Bosch is, with 94% of the shares, the Robert Bosch Foundation. Look it up to see what they do.
“ In no-cloud mode the only way to interact with the devices is through their app, and an app isn’t always the most convenient way to interact with devices in the home.”
Note that it is "the only way to interact remotely". That is, no cloud mode disables interaction with e.g. Home Assistant but not interaction with the buttons.
> I specifically told the salesperson I didn't want wifi, and they told me it's only if you want it to operate from your phone.
Don't know where you are but in most countries that would be a valid reason to return it at any time you found it out. They lied to get your money, willfully is almost never a requirement.
Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but:
1. there's probably no evidence of it
2. the workers at the store will deny it
3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is
4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a valid legal issue
Most retailers just have a standard return policy, it's a good idea to choose where you purchase a major appliance where you know the return policy.
For Costco it's 90 days for a major appliance, you don't have to justify yourself as to why. Some stores have terrible return policies, some have good enough policies.
I've seen snap together flooring, the kind that does not require nails, returned to Costco full of nails. I thought that was incredibly wrong but they took it back
Yeah, good return policies make things easy, for sure. But retailers with bad policies still have to fulfill their legal requirements even if their policy conflicts.
I will never buy anything Bosch again after reading this thread. What other reason could Bosch have for hiding this functionality behind a website and user account if not to monetize it down the line or worse, bring more of the functionality behind a paywall. We already saw what happened with HP charging to print and even the recent Chromecast outage where something that should be handled locally is pinging back to Google and then working.
> pinging back to Google and then working
I still have a bricked Android phone from nonsense like that. If you:
1. Factory reset the phone while not logged in to the last Google account on the phone
2. Have the Google account invalidated (e.g., using an identity verification app on a temp noogler account, ...)
You'll never be able to access the phone again. The "factory reset" maintains some internal state despite a scary message on the screen promising everything is deleted and asking if that's really what you want, and it'll require the last working password.
Alright ... annoying, buggy (the fact that there are two factory resets and one doesn't reset the device is a problem; either fix or delete the broken one, or make the scary message scarier), but fine in my case.
It checks that password against Google's servers though instead of the local hash, and it doesn't even matter if you know the password; the fact that the account is inactive prevents you from accessing the phone.
That's an anti theft feature. Intended to make the phone useless to a thief. It doesn't work very well, thieves manage to get around it somehow (not so much with Apple's version) so it ends up annoying the users more than it does deter thieves.
Apple is really really difficult about getting these unlocked. The carriers can't do it, you have to show them proof of purchase and have an enterprise support contract. With Google the carriers can just do it usually.
I managed a fleet of mobiles at work for a while, this is how I know. It often happened that colleagues returned a phone without unlocking it.
> thieves manage to get around it somehow
There are vulnerabilities. Some years ago when this was a new feature I got an android phone to use for development for someone. I just generated a new google account on it and promptly forgot the new email and pass.
Time to return it: surprise, it wanted the previous account to log in after a factory reset. I ended up keeping it and paying for it.
A few months later, after a weekend of googling, I found instructions on how to bypass it by using some vulnerability in the browser invoked in the initial set up, got to a browser window with an address bar, used it to download and install some apk with an older version of some system service, and used that to bypass the lockdown.
Of course, it's probably much harder than that now. But it's doable.
It is a very good thing that Apple is tough about it, given the high value of the devices, and how people carry them around in public. I very much want my devices to be useless to thieves.
It's still not clear how this requires Apple to do anything or why it should have anything to do with any cloud service.
The IMEI is burned into the phone. They should definitely make it hard to change the IMEI; but they do. If the phone is stolen then the IMEI gets reported as stolen and anyone who tries to activate the phone with a wireless carrier gets caught.
Why does Apple or Google need to inconvenience people who forget their passwords or encounter the conglomerate's bugs?
Stolen Imeis aren't always exchanged between carriers, much less internationally.
Even if that wasn't the case, as long as there were at least a few decently-sized countries not plugged into the system, that's where the thieves would sell all their devices.
Stolen Apple devices are still usable for parts (which is why parts pairing is not always a bad thing), and you can sometimes phish the Apple ID credentials from the victim, which is why stealing those devices is still profitable enough.
> Even if that wasn't the case, as long as there were at least a few decently-sized countries not plugged into the system, that's where the thieves would sell all their devices.
It still limits the market where they can be sold, because even there the customer doesn't actually want a stolen device. What if that country starts blocking them, or they want to travel anywhere that does? They could even get arrested.
It also requires the thieves to have a network to transport them there, vs. individual petty thieves who would otherwise be selling them locally.
> Stolen Apple devices are still usable for parts (which is why parts pairing is not always a bad thing)
Parts pairing is still a scam. They could check the part against a stolen device list without refusing to pair with parts from third party OEMs or first party non-stolen parts from other regional markets.
> Stolen Imeis aren't always exchanged between carriers, much less internationally.
Yes these often end up in Eastern Europe where the carriers don't really care about that stuff. And most people can't pay full price for top end phones so there's much more market for this stuff.
Even on legit corporations with tens of thousands of iPhones, Apple still gives you a lot of hassle if you want to get one unlocked. Just so this won't be used as a loophole.
> and you can sometimes phish the Apple ID credentials from the victim, which is why stealing those devices is still profitable enough.
Yep, I always see "is this text legit?" posts with clear phishing URLs in iOS help groups on Facebook, posted by people who had their iPhones stolen and think it's Apple Support attempting to get it back.
IMEI blacklisting is not worldwide. The phone can still be used in other countries. Also, rogue carrier employees are selling IMEI blacklist removal as a side gig on the black market.
Isn't this the same problem either way? The enterprising criminal can take a low level job at Apple rather than a low level job at a carrier, which is presumably one of the reasons it hasn't actually worked.
And if the problem is that each country is using a different IMEI blacklist then that seems like an obvious thing to fix. There are already treaties and agreements which is how the global phone network operates to begin with, or you could have US law enforcement set up a system to submit the IMEI to each of the individual blacklists.
I trust apple to have more intelligent audit controls on their employees than the average carrier.
And the calculation for the carrier is different. There's a inherent incentive on unblocking a phone for the carrier, as this means a billable contract. For Apple there's a inherent incentive in being known as having devices hard to unblock and thus, presumably less attractive for thieves.
> The enterprising criminal can take a low level job at Apple rather than a low level job at a carrier
To my knowledge, Apple has not had any insider compromise of activation lock.
This is why criminals try to phish the credentials from the victim instead.
> To my knowledge, Apple has not had any insider compromise of activation lock.
First they would have to get caught.
> This is why criminals try to phish the credentials from the victim instead.
Either method would be effective and not every criminal would have access to an insider, or they would have to pay off the insider for each device and then still prefer to phish the customer if possible to avoid paying the bribe.
Yes and even companies that can request it (I worked for one in this role) have to provide extensive documentation.
A phone must be purchased for us (with invoice with serial no) originally, or it must have been enrolled in our corporate MDM before getting locked. And for a while they didn't even accept the latter.
So even if you are at a third party you won't get away with sneaking these through. Which is good, a bit annoying sometimes though when some of our vendors didn't provide serial number invoices. We now require it but during the first years of anti-theft lock it was a bit of an issue and caused a lot of e-waste for us, sadly.
Yes, here in Barcelona which is pretty much pickpocket central, it's always funny to see the tourists going around with their big iPhone XL sticking way out of their back pocket.
At first I used to tell them (the way you would when someone goes around with their backpack wide open) but people were usually like 'mind your own business' so yeah. Better to let them find out the hard way then.
I want to know whether this actually deters thieves. Anecdotally, from what I heard, it seems that phone stealing is very much still a thing in areas with active pickpocketing.
It is not as bad as it used to be... Apple phones are only good for parts, which isn't much. I'd guess pickpockets typically can't tell what kind of phone you have before they take it, and Androids, being the exploitable mishmash of stuff they usually are, often can be unlocked.
In the US I am not worried about people taking my phone even in sketchy areas. I'm sure they'd much rather have my wallet or other valuables.
Even then, Apple also bind (an increasingly larger amount of) component IDs to the motherboard, so nowadays a stolen device can't (really) be used for parts either. (The display will not authenticate and Face ID & HDR won't work, in addition to a message showing that in Settings)
And to answer the obvious repair question -- yes, parts can be rebound to other motherboards etc., they just need iPhone Activation to pass first.
When five years ago thieves broke into my sons' class locker room, they stole all android phones and cash but didn't bother to take iphones. So yes it works or at least it did back then.
This isn't really consistent with the theft statistics, e.g. 68.6% of stolen phones are iPhones[1] (in the UK where they have ~44% market share). This is presumably because of higher resale value etc., but the premise that nobody cares to steal them anymore evidently hasn't panned out.
[1] https://www.loveitcoverit.com/news/changing-world/mobile-pho...
That could be because in many situations (crimes of opportunity) thieves don’t have the luxury of time to evaluate the model of a phone before they steal it. Google needs to step their shit up.
That isn't really consistent with the statistics either: If that was happening then the theft rate should approximate the penetration, but it's still higher for iPhones, implying that the thieves actually prefer them.
That makes sense if they e.g. have a higher resale value, but only if they have a higher resale value and the thieves are choosing them on purpose as a result.
I'm sorry that the reality in a locker room of a Norwegian high school is not consistent with British statistics.
Why would being in a different country change the effectiveness of the same system? The relevance of the country is that the theft rate has to be compared with the installed base for that type of phone, which is something that does vary by country.
It does because the thieves just want some cash to get a quick drug fix or whatever.
Even if they get $10 for a $1200 iPhone they are happy. And many components can still be salvaged and be worth more than that.
I get why the feature exists, but it's my humble opinion that a "brick your device" button shouldn't exist. Repeating myself, some alternatives with similar levels of antitheft whil being much more pleasant for the user:
- Don't enable that kind of reset functionality if that kind of antitheft is enabled
- Warn the user about the potential bricked device, and require an additional confirmation
- Don't require a ping to Google servers when you can verify account ownership just via a matched password hash
Antitheft is fine and dandy, but the implementation is bad.
That's Factory Reset Protection. You can turn it off in settings, if you don't want that security feature.
But yes, factory reset on Android phones only wipes the user data partition. Your phone has other things that don't necessarily get reset under a factory reset too, for instance: eSIMs (which is useful that it doesn't, in my experience)
"Factory reset" is a misnomer, a true factory reset would completely erase the internal storage and replace it with a clean copy of the OS.
If that phone is based on a Mediatek SoC, I believe a true reset is possible - look up SPFlashTool and read about this useful exploit:
https://tinyhack.com/2021/01/31/dissecting-a-mediatek-bootro...
Sounds like "Find My" on iPhones which is apparently meant as theft protection: as long as it's enabled the device will not accept activation with any other account even after a factory reset as long as the owner doesn't input their password and disable the feature.
A lot of buyers of used iPhones and Macbooks find that out the hard way, often because the owners don't even know about that. And actual thieves don't need to care about it as long as they find a buyer who doesn't know about it either.
Wow, I didn't know Android phones were susceptible to this. Apple did this to a phone I had but I assumed Google couldn't since there are so many manufacturers with varying setups.
My relatively new Bosch dishwasher has real buttons and an LED display. No wifi required
Looks like we got lucky. My unit is a couple years old and has physical buttons, a display, and no wifi. It's been discontinued. Looking at Bosch's site now, there are no models without wifi. The cheap ones (mine was in the "300 series") now lack a display, have touch buttons and require wifi.
I have button and LEDs, and it works fine without wifi for "basic functions", but for "advanced functions" like washer deep cleaning I would need to use their website.
I just bought one and yes, mine also comes with WiFi but it's 100% optional: all features are available in menus or physical buttons too. (Including the infamous rinse cycle the blog post mentions)
It's a European model ("SMV4HAX48E", I'm in EMEA) so it might differ by markets.
Same, my mum got a new Bosch Series 4 last year and it doesn't have wifi at all. Everything is on the control panel.
I think this is annoying, but given that the basic functionality works, it personally wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me. I don't normally do anything fancy with the settings on my dishwasher, I just want it to wash the dishes. I'd rather have a dishwasher that puts delay and eco mode behind an app, than some shitty dishwasher that doesn't clean the dishes well on the "normal" setting.
This reminds me of the EU regulations, which not only:
1. _require_ dishwashers to have an Eco mode, not locked behind anything, but also
2. _require_ Eco mode to be the default. If you buy a dishwasher in the EU and turn it on, and press "start", it'll be on Eco mode, the mode that uses the least water/power.
If you don't care about the dishwasher other than to turn it on, and it works for you, then everybody wins. If it doesn't wash as much as you'd like, or takes longer thank you'd like, you can still have all the other dishwasher modes (express, intensive, etc.).
The whole point of the regulation is to make the default mode the most energy efficient. I find it absolutely crazy that a German company, when given free rein in the USA, would actually paywall Eco mode. It's just mind-boggling.
The weird thing about eco modes is that they often don’t use less water or power. I live off grid, and just as a function of my setup I know exactly what consumes what. My Bosch dishwasher, on a normal 70C dish cycle, uses about 4.5L of water and 1.6kWh. On eco mode, it uses 8L of water, and 1.8kWh. Takes twice as long though.
Similar with my AEG washer - a 40 degree cotton wash uses marginally more water than a 40 degree eco wash, but less power - and is 25% quicker.
Honestly, it’s not clear what the economy is supposed to be. Intensity of demand? Except on each appliance the heater runs at the same rated wattage when it’s heating - just different patterns of usage on eco mode, more off and on.
That's a really weird thing. In the EU, not only is Eco mode mandatory, and must be the default mode, and you can't label any other mode "default" or "normal" to sway the consumer to use that instead... but it's also how the appliance's energy rating is calculated, and it's displayed prominently on every device sold. It would be madness for a company not to put their most efficient settings on Eco mode.
https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/...
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:...
You can also see there that they're tracking the effects of their regulations and measuring how much less electricity and water is used. The regulations also set minimum standards for cleaning, drying and energy usage so you can't sell products that look efficient but require everything washed twice, nor can you even include a resource hog mod.
And it mandates the availability of spare parts for a certain number of years, and access to repair information, so you don't just junk the whole object.
I can only imagine "Eco" mode being worse than other modes in some place where there's not good market regulation.
I just checked my own dishwasher, and its Eco mode uses 9L of water and 0.83kWh per cycle. Other washing modes use 9-17L water and 0.9-1.5kWh per cycle... so it does conform to the regulations.
Just as an anecdote - that's not my experience, and I have a smart power plug to measure it too. On my Bosch Series 6 dishwasher, Eco Mode comes consistently in at 1.2kWh per cycle, while the intensive 70C cycle is around 1.6kWh. I have no way of measuring water usage though, but in terms of energy the ECO mode is really the most efficient.
Is 70c normal? Wont that mess up plastic items?
Yes, it's normal (should be above 65C, anyway). Yes, even "dishwasher-safe" plastic items often warp or discolor in a normal hot dishwashing cycle. I wouldn't put anything plastic or fragile in the dishwasher, but virtually everything in the kitchen is ceramic, glass, or stainless steel, so.
Why would a German company apply feel-good but ultimately counter-productive regulation to customers where they don't have to?
> counter-productive
The opposite, actually. Productive. Millions of litres of water and terawatts of power saved per year. End users collectively saving €1.3 billion on water and electricity costs in 2020 (in comparison to them having standard dishwashers from 1990 before any eco targets were set)
https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/...
Not shown: water wasted from pre-washing dishes or having to run multiple cycles because the new eco-modes don't do the job properly. Also from manually washing dishes because the dishwasher is blocked for longer (and even longer once you add the extended drying time required due to the lower temperatures).
Shown: the regulations actually set minimum cleaning and drying requirements, for precisely that reason - the equipment has to do the job properly.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:...
It's almost as if they already thought this through when making the regulation.
Not shown: the EU cleaning requirements are inadequate in reality which is why dishwashers previously defaulted to higher-energy modes - because those modes are the ones that actually work reliably for users. It's almost like the regulations are ideologically motivated rather than having anything to do with reality.
That sounds annoying too. I want the default to be the one that does what I want it to do, clean a normal load of dishes, and do a good job at it. My dishwasher defaults to the last mode I set it to.
> I find it absolutely crazy that a German company, when given free rein in the USA, would actually paywall Eco mode. It's just mind-boggling.
... they didn't do that. There is no paywall.
Perhaps I misspoke, but needing a network connection, needing a smartphone, giving over your details, very likely getting marketing materials you didn't want via app notifications, or email, requiring to comply with terms of service, and at any time the company is free to rescind or change the offer, to me is "paywalling". You are paying out, giving them things of real value, over and above buying the device, and if you don't then they're blocking functionality.
All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it.
It's annoying, but it's not a paywall.
> All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it.
For a dishwasher yes, but I don't agree with that as a blanket statement. There are cloud connected devices that I really like. e.g. I like to run my Roomba on-demand after I leave my house, and I think that's an entirely reasonable use case.
Many other devices are useful away from home as well, which would all require internet connectivity. e.g. security systems, cameras, etc.
The internet doesn't need to be the cloud.
Security cameras are the classic example of widespread self hosted but internet-accessible.
Even the ones that have proprietary apps are often just alternative frontends to a web server running on the home network.
It does when the end user is being a NAT and a firewall and they don't know how to configure it. Legacy IPs cameras are notorious for being difficult-to-impossible for consumers to install, and when they managed to do so, they were often set up insecurely.
The typical MJPEG/ONVIF camera doesn't even remotely compete for the same customers as Ring/Nest/Blink.
> not a paywall
You pay with your data
Nobody uses the word that way. You give HN the ability to use all user-contributed data. Nobody would say HN is paywalled.
It's true that the companies wouldn't want you to use the word "pay", but that's what it is.
When you register at HN you know that they need some data to manage your user account, for the same reason cookie banners aren't needed if all of a site's cookies are required for it to function. A dishwasher doesn't need a wifi connection or data to clean dishes, and if it's not clearly advertised before purchase that's effectively a hidden cost.
Perhaps nobody uses the word like that so far, but if enough people did it probably would turn out better for the consumer.
It really is annoying. And if I have to switch modes I normally go for the 70C power wash instead of "normal" setting to make sure everything gets clean too.
> ... they didn't do that. There is no paywall.
Where I live internet access isn’t provided for free.
Where I live housing isn’t provided for free; are all dishwashers paywalled?
Y’all are doing acrobatics to twist the definition of a very common and clear word.
I mean, is Bosch the bad guy here or the salesperson? It sounds like they either lied or were incompetent.
I guess maybe both are bad. Yesterday I tried to configure a friend’s wifi router after the speed was suspiciously slow. It forced me to ask them for their Spectrum login info (the same info they use to pay the bills, not the wifi info) which nobody remembered and I gave up. Apparently this is required according to https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/s/3sLnHuWgEF
So if we’re badmouthing companies that lock physical functionality behind a cloud, add Spectrum. Not that you’ll have much choice if they’re the only provider, but still.
The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. What if you have someone house sitting? You really need to download the Bosch app to their phone just to use the same dishwashing routine that you usually do? Blah.
Any alternatives to Bosch that don’t do this?
Cable company "Customer Premises Equipment" normally has provisioning capabilities built in, so that they can be controlled/reconfigured/reset from the upstream provider. You could probably call Spectrum and they can reset for you.
The reason they do all of this is exactly because of the scenario you ran into: people are always forgetting their logins -- and back when modems/routers didn't have remote provisioning, they spent a lot of time and money sending technicians out to physically reset people's equipment.
Mesh routers are requiring an app to configure them now. TPLink and Ubiquiti is a big violator of this. (Ubiquiti you can run a docker container as a controller... but still..)
How is Ubiquiti a violator of this? You can run their Java software on anything or buy a cloud key. I use an old HP thin client. There’s a good app and a well maintained webpage. If you enjoy pain, most gear has a cli.
I can’t think of a better way to offer the functionality in a way that works for so many customer segments.
He asked for no wifi, was sold a no wifi dishwasher and then later changed his mind and wanted wifi after installing it. Where's the misrepresentation?
No, the person above was led to believe that all of the dishwasher's features could be used offline, but that was not the case.
Usually contracts say that the entire contract is contained within the four corners of the document and anything the salesman tells you isn’t a contract.
If there was a written contract, it might say that. I haven't always been asked to sign a written contract for appliances at retail. But even if it did, those types of contracts can not disclaim away any liability for the salesperson accurately representing the product. Verbal contracts are legally contracts whether or not the seller wants to be held liable for them.
If the contract doesn’t correspond to what the salesperson said, wouldn’t the company still be on the hook for false advertising and/or fraud?
Bought from a dealership. I don't think he lied, I think he just didn't know about "advanced functions".
I never got the "no need for wifi" in written form.
Bosch knows how to perfect asshole design.
On some of their ovens there is a secret key sequence (like game cheat) to get the buttons working again. Every 6 months you need to do this otherwise pay for a service call to do this. Or have a defunct oven.
But it is not public info they have released (but had been leaked on YT)
So they have software with a bug and a workaround they won't tell you about. Ideally they should recall these ovens and pay for a replacement install.
> Every 6 months you need to do this otherwise pay for a service call to do this.
My favorite is my Bosh wall oven that uses 85C rated capacitors with practically no voltage derating for the control board that sits directly at the top of the oven. After 4 years, they gave out causing the display to dim to the point of invisibility.
We’re talking about 50 cents of part savings on a $3000+ appliance here.
Replaced them myself easily, but most people will end up having to call for service and end up replacing the entire board for hundreds of dollars minimum.
Actually no - I forgot about my Bosch dishwasher that uses capacitive touch buttons. Great idea for something that is often touched with wet fingers…
Capacitive touch buttons are #1 on my hate list for "inventions". They have all the downsides of touchscreens with none of the upsides, and they're imitating a control device so perfect that it basically hasn't been changed since its invention (the button).
Agreed - I hate captouch buttons, and would rather have physical controls every time. But in case you're curious why they're so common:
1. They're cheaper than mechanical buttons.
2. They're more space-efficient inside of the product.
3. They are easy to waterproof.
4. They have no wear-out mechanism.Thanks, I intuited (1) and (2) but I hadn't thought about (3) or (4). I think waterproof mechanisms are about the only time I've encountered them where I haven't immediately despised them for total lack of haptic feedback and lag time between button input and device function--although that probably has more to do with poor system design rather than the limits of the captouch button technology.
My guess is that I associate them with lag because any control interface that cut corners on buttons probably cut corners on everything else, too.
Arguably speaking, physical buttons and wet fingers seem to be a way worse combination.
Sidetrack, maybe a silly question: Under what circumstances are you touching your dishwasher with wet fingers? Plates are dry when they go in and dry when they come out if you have a decent dishwasher.
Capacitive buttons suck, but they are no worse in dishwashers than in any other appliance, in my usage at least
I don't believe this. It's illegal in many countries. No way a large German (after Dieselgate they all are very cautious) company like Bosch would make such a stupid move. If they did they'd face countless lawsuits and a ban in many countries (first would be the USA).
Not saying it was intentional
The only thing I have ever heard about Bosch major appliances is that people hate them.
Their washing machines and dryers are best in class IMO. At least in Europe they still have a reputation for quality.
I don't know where you've heard this. As a European when I hear Bosch I think reliability and quality. I'd much rather buy a Bosch dishwasher/washing machine over any other brand, wifi or no wifi.
I love my Volkswagen which has plenty of Bosch parts in it.
I don't hear about Americans with Bosch appliances very often, but every time I've heard (I suppose until today) it was a very negative review. Maybe the American versions are different, or perhaps I've just run across a few dissatisfied people randomly.
> Bosch knows how to perfect asshole design.
This is actually pretty low on the asshole scale.
Consider: dishwashing-as-a-service subscription model. You get the dishwasher chemicals in the post - the dishwasher automatically requests the next lot when it feels like it - and there's cover for repairs; for this you can either pay a regular fee or make in-app purchases of WashCoin, which you then spend when you need to wash the dishes. Maybe add a gacha mode to the app to win bonus wash / rinse / self-clean cycles.
Stupid question but have you tried turning it off and on for a while?
It might be something simpler
In Australia you're not required to keep the packaging, and the company you bought it from must cover your shipping costs. This would constitute a Major Problem[1].
1. https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-...
That is a really good system you have over there.
I suspect the company would just respond “the dishwasher is working fine the owner just refuses to enable features as per the manual”.
Take them to court then! Get a group action or just small claims it. Do a CC charge back. They really can't deliver garbage.
In 10 years that appliance may not connect to your wifi if the scheme has changed e.g. 2.4Ghz is dropped or something.
<absoluteTotalTangent>
I read Australia<snip>Major Problem, and I immediately had the Koxbox track pop into my head. Naturally, it's easiest to find it on YT[0]. I never did take the time to look up where the sample came from, not what the full audio would say. I just assumed that Australians dutifully ignored it when heard as much as 'murikans ignored the FBI warnings at the head of VHS tapes--later DVDs.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7IW3Or590
</absoluteTotalTangent>
Is this just an american thing/model?
I have a Bosch Series 6 dishwasher here in Australia. It has physical buttons for all the stuff he mentions - Machine Care (self-cleaning), HalfLoad, Eco, and Delay start.
I did connect it to wifi which allows me to ... do the same stuff from their app. It's next to useless in my use pattern of "load the dishwasher, run the dishwasher". Literally all it adds is the ability to more easily set the machine to run later, which I don't care about.
I love Bosch stuff and will continue to buy it, certainly their series 6 and 8 stuff that's made in Germany - great quality and reliable IMHO.
Honestly it seems like there's just been a poor design decision here, to export the full set of controls to an app rather than on the machine, rather than some sort of fundamental sin. It certainly raises questions of what happens if/when they drop support, but another poster below mentions that the app works locally after initial cloud setup. Maybe just avoid this model...
The previous generation of Bosch dishwashers in the US were WiFi free. The current generation went through a round of cost cutting and added WiFi bullshit to everything. No idea what the state is of their appliances sold in other markets.
As far as I can tell Electrolux is the only manufacturer selling "dumb" laundry kit in the US these days… which is probably part of why everyone's favorite LG shills (Yale Appliance) does their best to ignore them.
Miele sells dumb dishwashers in the US.
I recently bought a Bosch and regret it for some of the same reasons as this article. I probably should have got the Miele but CR ratings were slightly higher for Bosch, the repair rates in different places were similar, and the cost was slightly less for the Bosch.
I'm ok with networked appliances but think every function should be operable at the minimum level of networking required to implement that function.
So, a specific washing or drying program shouldn't require any networking, so should function without any networking. Checking the status of a cycle on you phone can be done locally through something like Bluetooth, so it should operate with that and no wifi. Remote monitoring requires internet of some sort, so that's fine.
What makes me furious is requiring a phone app to run something like a delicate or rinse-only cycle.
The ones on the bosch US website do have different model numbers and a different look compared to Bosch UK/AU/DE, which is a little odd. But even then there are models similar to mine, which have Wifi but don't rely on it - https://www.bosch-home.com/us/en/mkt-product/dishwashers/fro...
Seems like the "top control" range, which I can't even see in other countries, might be what's presenting the problem to the author.
IDGAF about appliances being dumb or smart, but I agree it's not a great thing if you have to use smart controls. Provide both and we're all good IMHO.
> The current generation went through a round of cost cutting and added WiFi bullshit to everything
I'm no dishwasher expert and I guess they did their homework but over a period of 10 years, how can be cheaper to remove the local functionality, add a wifi chip, redo the manuals, and pay for the datacenter costs?
It's probably more that they add the online features because some users want them and then think if they already have that they can save some cents on buttons.
Also I seriously doubt the hosting costs are more than a rounding error for a multiple-hundred-dollar appliance.
> Also I seriously doubt the hosting costs are more than a rounding error for a multiple-hundred-dollar appliance.
Ok but...
> then think if they already have that they can save some cents on buttons.
Isn't this a rounding error as well, on a >500$ appliance?
How can we have at the same time dishwashers with no 7-segments display because it's too expensive and other brands with wifi on every model? It cannot be just for costs, there ought to be marketing reasons behind this.
So I have the same model. And night before last instead of starting. It bleeped and flashed a row of LED's. And that's it. It doesn't have an LED display to show error codes. Pulled it out, nothing seems wrong. But I have no idea what it's upset about.
> Literally all it adds is the ability to more easily set the machine to run later, which I don't care about.
Funny, that is a single physical button on my Siemens dishwasher.
Sure, there's one on my Bosch too. But I'm damned if I know how to set it to (for instance) turn on at 7am by using the buttons on the machine. There's probably a way involving multiple button presses. The app does that easily.
But as I said before - not really something I care about either way.
Oh yes. Got an e-bike with a Bosch controller. Have to click away the app advertisement every time before I can use the bike. And the app requires registration. I have the strong suspicion that as soon as I do that, the bike will only work with my phone and start locking out my family members from using it.
Other way around. They'll try to upsell you on a 5 euro feature that locks the bike to your phone and prevents family members (or thieves) from using it. Though since almost no ebikes do that, it doesn't work to reduce theft.
Not much point in the app unless you want to transfer routes to a map app on the head unit, though.
Like with some cars, they then get sold for parts or there is a hack to work around it. I just put a gps tracker in the battery to get insurance money since the cops will do nothing (but will if you go after you own bike to stop you from trespassing).
My bosch ebike controller is a very lousy timekeeper, and the only way to set the clock is with an app.
Totally different experience. Bosch dish washer 800 series - fantastic, clean and quiet. No need for wireless if i don’t want it and no blocked features.
Have other appliances - well made, sturdy and made to last. I wont say it was the cheapest option but i typically pay for a balance of quality, value and privacy.
Yes, but that's the $400-more-expensive model they mention in the article, with the 7 segment display. Which is a model at least 40% more expensive than the 500 series they bought.
Yup you are correct. I agree with article thats BS to gate keep functionality through cloud access requirements and boy am I happy that I bought the 800 series. That said I don't like contributing to the business model of paying for privacy - seems broken.
> That said I don't like contributing to the business model of paying for privacy - seems broken.
I fully agree.
But to be fair, in a other comment someone linked to a website [0] explaining that the app could be used without connection to internet. So in this case perhaps Bosch didn't have as much of a malicious intent as originally thought.
Quote from the link:
However, [..], the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key, but from then on the appliances can be operated entirely disconnected from the network.
> by the time I read that it needs to use their website for some functions.
> you cannot use all the functions without creating an account on their website and have them run those functions for you.
Which functions?
This is a really confusing post without knowing what those functions are.
TFA made it pretty clear that rinse cycle, delayed start, and eco mode require the app.
On my model "deep cleaning" of the dishwasher, some other functions I think, but that I didn't care for.
I just had a similar issue with action cameras. My options are GoPro overheats and short battery life, DJI app banned in the store that I would not use regardless, insta360 / akaso which appear to both be the same shell companies and their camera can't even activate without an app despite the vendor promising otherwise. Returned and one starred all that junk. I would like to find a true stand-alone professional fully functional action camera with stabilization, long battery life and built by pros. Without exception I will not use anything that requires a phone or wifi and I don't care how big it is. Even if it's a 200,000 pound excavator, it will be on their doorstep if it requires a phone or wifi some are going this direction and one way or another they will be paying for shipping and my time.
Bosch dishwasher here. Zero network connectivity of any kind and washes dishes better than any other non-industrial dishwasher I've ever used. 10/10, would recommend, will buy again.
According to Wirecutter, they pulled Bosch from their recommendations after all the old models were pulled and this new line of WiFi connected dishwashers replaced them in 2023.
You would really purchase something based on past experience with the company, not caring about looking into the current state of what they are producing?
> You would really purchase something based on past experience with the company
Absolutely. Companies that make bullshit products very rarely get their act together, so why wouldn't brand loyalty be a thing when one encounters a quality product?
> after all the old models were pulled and this new line of WiFi connected dishwashers replaced them in 2023
That is news to me. If true my next dishwasher is going to be a Hobart from the used restaurant equipment shop up the way. Incidentally I just looked into it and Bosch claims that their HomeConnect enabled dishwashers function just fine with no internet connection, so there is that.
There is no customer loyalty, so with brand loyalty you're only ripping yourself off.
Only if brand quality actually declines. The idea that having found a good product one should then never purchase another product from the same manufacturer is bizarre.
> Bosch dishwasher here. Zero network connectivity of any kind
Absolutely bullshit. If you are a dishwasher without any network connectivity, how are you posting comments on the internet, Mr Bosch?
Which model are you using, for future reference?
It's an 8-9 year old 800 series dishwasher. So far it's outlived our previous two dishwashers combined lifetimes with zero issues.
Literally have a Bosch dishwasher that has none of this Wifi garbage. It is amazing and super low sound compared to the 10 year old one that self destructed and nearly wrecked my basement bedroom (and the electrical panel).
Strongly recommended, would buy it again - as long as they don't have any insane IoT garbage included.
Yeah with most appliances its... not smart to go for highest of their ranges. Way too many functionalities crammed into 1 device just to justify much higher price. All want to be online to do what... pester you with notifications and updates?
I love Bosch, all the stuff we have from them works perfectly many years after buying. Similar for Siemens. But for me - AEG, Whirlpool and Electrolux are the crappiest of the crappiest stuff I've experienced, those brands are banned at my home.
But there is the trick - go for highest offline-only range, which is normally in the middle or just above middle of the range. Best value for money. Plus I couldn't care less of some online features, don't need them, hate them, its just a ticking bomb regardless of manufacturer.
Same as recently discussed here Samsung HW-Q990D surround soundbar update bricking the devices for some. Why the heck would I ever want to update surround speakers which work perfectly fine now? Some sort of OCD out of hands? They never add anything important with such updates, and the general risk is not worth doing it. Plus avoiding not-another-stupid-app-in-phone syndrome.
Yeah with most appliances its... not smart to go for highest of their ranges.
Often the parts you actually care about are the same among most of the products in a range. When looking at Miele dishwashers recently they all had the same core dish washing mechanics, and all you got when moving to the highest end model was some superficial design changes, an app and that the door popped open once it was done.
That’s really unfortunate considering they are a top rated dishwasher with historically basic feature sets on their products. My Bosch doesn’t even have an LCD display on it.
This is likely a model number related issue. I have a Siemens, which, as I understand it, is a Bosch with different styling, since none of these brands actually make the appliances, they're just lending their brand to a separate manufacturer (which is still in Germany FWIW). It also has the "home connect" app.
I have none of these issues. I have a dedicated button for delayed start on the front of the dishwasher. Dedicated "machine care" button. Not sure what the "rinse cycle" is, so I don't know if it has it, but there's a special rinsing-related button on the front that does something that prolongs the cycle. It also has a dedicated "half load" button. It has buttons for every "useful" cycle, like "eco" which is automatically selected when I turn it on. It's also able to go to a menu of sorts where I can configure water hardness, the quantity of rinsing liquid I want (separately from the hardness setting) and some other things I forgot.
The machine was bought new a little less than two years ago and does have the wifi and bluetooth and whatnot. It's also the only appliance I know which supports 5 GHz wifi. The manual also tries to get you to install the app, but it's not needed.
Bosch and Siemens produce home appliances through B(osch)S(iemens)H Hausgeräte GmbH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausgeräte). They are not lending their brand to another manufacturer.
That's exactly what they are dong though, they just also each have partial ownership of that manufacturer.
This type of comment is common, unfortunately. It amounts to "Don't use [thing] because of [anecdote]".
Bosch, in particular, is highly regarded. They also have a wide range. I bought an 800 series 2-3 years ago. I went online to see if anything had changed. You still find the same options: front controls, top controls, different finishes, etc. You can still absolutely buy a dishwasher with manual controls. They're excellent products.
Now my model seems to be before Wifi was added although I did buy an LG washer and dryer that has Wifi, which I did actually try and set up and failed. The code and stack in these things is truly awful. AFAICT I couldn't get it to work because my home network is segmented with 2 Wifi access points. Each of them broadcasts my Wifi network on the same SSID with the same credentials so devices use whichever one has the best signal. It doesn't always move routers so it's not as good as, say, a Ubiquiti network, but it's good enough.
Anyway, the washer/dryer listed my Wifi network 3 times and failed to connect to it for reasons I never established. The error message was a generic "authorization failed". I think it might've had something to do with DHCP. Possibly my address range or DNS servers. Weirdly, it would connect via a phone hotspot just fine. In the end I gave up.
But the point is that the washer/dryer work just fine without Wifi and although I don't have a Wifi-enabled Bosch dishwasher, I very much suspect they do too. Your comment says "it needs to use their website for some functions". What functions, exactly? Would that be notifications for when a load is done? If so, that makes perfect sense. But I bet the dishwasher worked just fine without Wifi.
In the linked article, it lists the 6 modes that will not work without the WiFi connection, including Eco mode, Rinse, Self clean, Delayed start, and Half mode.
Note that Bosh in this case is a brand of BSH Hausgeräte so if you have reason to boycott them you probably also want to boycott their other home appliance brands, including Siemens and more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausger%C3%A4te#Appliance_...
I've run into amazing customer service when I've contacted companies in Germany about stuff. For example, a 1960s vintage pressure cooker (Sikkomat) handed down from my mom. I wrote the manufacturer, asking about how the secondary safety works, and they replied saying regrettably the manual is out of print, but here's a photocopy, enclosed.
So with Bosch, see if you can find a German address/feedback form. Don't worry, they'll understand English.
> Beside the fact that I doubt the store would take it back after using it for a week or two
Where do you live? Pretty sure that in the EU they’d have to take it back, for any reason, if it’s not been 14 days yet. Though the no packaging could pose an issue, yeah.
14 days no-question returns are only for online orders. In-store pickups have different (local) rules.
Was all set to purchase a Bosch and the local shopsaid their quality has plummeted in recent years, recommend a Meile for the same price. Was told they get far fewer repair requests with this brand.
That's a shame, we've bought two Bosch dishwashers (two different houses). The second one is 12 years old and still working. Had to replace the pump once, although that problem was almost certainly caused by sediment in our water lines.
I like that they've been quiet and reliable, the reliability affirmed by the repair person that replaced the pump.
Wirecutter (NYT) would agree: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/the-best-dishwash...
Requisite archive.ph link: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/the-best-dishwash...
If you can afford it, Miele is definitely the way to go. The premium is quite high but IME you're buying the product, not just the brand.
Genuinely, what about my dishwasher would I want to control from my phone? The only operations I do on it are turn it on (redundant because I need to load it first, which needs me to be there) and check if it's done, mostly redundant because it's not a time-sensitive operation.
Sounds not so much like a Bosch problem as a retailer problem. It was the retailer that lied to you about the machine.
Requiring internet for features that don't need the internet is a manufacturer problem, no matter what any retailer says or doesn't say.
I'll grant you that, but many other manufacturers are doing that too. I avoid buying those models. If it says "wifi", I avoid it like the plague.
I bought a Bosch dishwasher about a year ago and didn't experience any of this. Maybe it depends on the model?
These days, Bosch is wholly owned by Siemens. And their appliances are basically the same. Except Bosch is now their experimental branch, where they try out ideas for products. Only those that are successful become Siemens products. So uhm, just buy a Siemens dishwasher, it's unlikely to have an app requirement.
That's completely the other way around and soothsaying :) BSH is a separate entity created 60 years ago by both companies but now fully owned by Bosch.
Bosch and Siemens had a joint venture since like 1960's. Around a decade ago Siemens sold out their BSH part of the company to Bosch completely and Bosch still makes some equipment under that brand. Yet still Siemens exist and is completely independent company.
Such joint ventures were not unlikely events for companies in that space in Europe. Siemens had parts of the company separated more often. Nokia Siemens Networks is kind of big (they ditched the Siemens name a decade ago), Nokia Siemens had briefly been know for cell phones for instance, Fujitsu Siemens did IT Enterprise hardware and software, PDAs and similar (here Fujitsu also took over and ditched Siemens part of the name).
Your buying advice ain't better than the guy's that sold that dishwasher to Jeff.
I have clearly been misinformed then. Though it kind of made sense to me on the surface, because it was hard to fathom why Bosch would tarnish its reputation with such anti-consumer products, whilst leaving the Siemens brand with the less hostile variants.
and Balay, i'm currently looking to renovate my kitchen right now and you can buy the same appliance in any of the 3 brands (Bosch, Balay and Siemens).
It’s there other way around. Robert Bosch acquired the stake in Siemens. So Bosch owns Siemens.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140923104028/http://www.rttnew...
The article says Bosh bought Siemens' stake in BSH Hausgeräte (which does use the Siemens brand for some of it's home appliance models), not that Bosh acquired a stake in Siemens.
I feel Jeff should have bit the bullet and just returned it. I know it's a waste of time, but these products have to be rejected at retail. Retailers will eventually get tired of the extra support burden and demand manufacturers drop stuff like this.
They should all get hit with the open box problem from the returns.
I'd love to take a stance like that, but the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation, and I have quite limited time for my home maintenance + improvement projects as it is (my bench currently has a new faucet set to fix the leaky bathroom faucet, as well as an exhaust fan to fix the broken one in our bathroom... and those are just the things that are currently broken, not the dozen or so routine maintenance things I am behind on otherwise!).
If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours (and wrangling that dumb dishwasher back into the minivan, probably with some water spilling out this time, causing more pain since it'll cause minivan issues lol), I don't know if I have the time for it.
That also assumes I can find a suitable replacement unit (and wrangle it, and install it) without seriously disrupting the dish-handling routine in the house for another day or three!
Sadly, that means Bosch wins this time. But if I never buy another Bosch device again (I have one of their water heaters, and a fancy ear thermometer that I rather liked...), maybe they will lose in the long run.
Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher.
There has to be some backpressure on the supply chain. I appreciate that you used your clout to make the issue public, but sometimes I worry that it only goes so far as our little echo chamber.
If it's any consolation, the video I posted on YouTube is getting some traction.
If it can get a good number of views, maybe it can at least generate enough impact to cut off a few hundred units of sales. That won't make a massive impact, but it's better than nothing.
If Bosch allowed me to update the firmware of my unit to not lock out features, I'd maybe consider doing that locally over an ad-hoc connection. Wish they would've just included Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Matter instead.
I can almost guarantee that I will now start seeing references to this in dishwasher recommendation threads on forums and Reddit now. And it won't be me doing all of it, I swear! :)
> There has to be some backpressure on the supply chain
Sure it would be nice, but just like all things, not to be pessimistic or fatalistic—the HN rejection of something doesn't practically matter to most companies. I mean, why is it is that Steve Bannon is the loudest voice against technofeudalism today? Why can't we get louder and get other people listening?
Make stickers and go put them on the units at the store. Send Bosch a picture of how you've improved their labeling along with a nice note indicating that you'll do it again if they don't change their ways.
That'd probably get you banned from the store if they find you doing that and at best, it's only going to get the message out to a few customers until the store staff remove the stickers.
Jeff's using his internet fame to reach far more people. I previously thought that Bosch were a good brand (only had a blender and a temperature controlled kettle from them though), but now will avoid them.
Ok, but not all of us have internet fame. I've found that my "here's where to pirate this textbook" stickers are not typically removed. Maybe sellers of dishwashers are more diligent, who knows.
Fair enough. I do enjoy seeing various subversive stickers put on lampposts etc. Maybe complaining on the internet and putting stickers would be a better tactic, but placing stickers probably takes more effort.
Perhaps there's an opening in the market for an appliance company that brands itself on self-repair and self-hosted connectivity? All most people want is "push button and do the thing as long as I live".
Maybe there is, maybe there isn't.
I mean, we all know what people say they want and what they'll do when/if they buy something may be two totally different things.
And: creating a dishwasher (or $appliance) that does its actual job good enough to be worth buying isn't something that can be hacked up in a weekend or two.
Edit to add: maybe - as Bosch pretty much has figured out how to make good diswhasheres - it'd be easier and more approachable to hack, rip out, replace the control electronics. Chances are this is going to work on more model than the one...
The calculation about whether to repair something or not usually hinges around labor and material costs vs replacement cost. The more difficult something is to repair, and the more expensive the components are, the less like it is to be repaired.
It's probably also true that high turnover of goods across brands due to early replacement allows for slimmer margins and higher yields, and hence lower cost of purchase. So on the other extreme, make things break more often and sell them cheaper and more often, which seems to be the status quo.
The economic problem to solve, then, is how to encourage brands to increase the durability of their goods. There are some review publications that perform stress-testing, but few keep metrics on long-term durability in a real-world setting. At a minimum, I check consumer review sites before I buy just to avoid the worst brands, and there you do see some people coming back after a few years to leave a warning to other people. And perhaps this kind of feedback has some effect.
Hopefully people start prizing 'dumb' products, and start leaving bad reviews on products that rely on an internet connection, when they're left stranded after the connection drops out.
I want to know what dishwasher and washing machine Marques Brownlee (mkbhd) uses, and to know that is going to use his clout in this regard ... not to burden him, but he has almost 20M subscribers on YT ...
I don't know if I want an appliance recommendation from someone who launched a paid subscription app for phone wallpapers. That mindset does not seem compatible with the customer owning what they bought.
If there was any influencer I'd want to know that from it's Louis Rossmann.
Assuming you're American, your state's attorney general office is responsible for consumer complaints.
It's free to file an issue, and in most cases you'll get a direct response. The issue here is product fails to perform as expected, and resolution is that the manufacturer remove the unit at their cost and give you a full refund.
Arranging an alternative purchase is your issue.
And contact your local news media as well. They love stories, particularly if there's existing footage they can air. VNRs (video news releases), the original "fake news" became a hot item in the 1990s Because Reasons. And you've already got the footage and audio.
Please have a look at this comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297
It's linking to a website with the following explanation:
However, perhaps inline with the German attitudes towards privacy, the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key, but from then on the appliances can be operated entirely disconnected from the network.Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did.
Funny how there is always someone who posts "you do X, and you will fail", and then follow up with "you will get hurt and/or hurt others" and then "we will punish you for trying". Like they work for the corporation, to spread the message of hopelessness. Embrace the tyranny of fate!
Maybe someone who is skillful enough to be able to DIY a micro-controller will also think about these issues and deal with them too? Or is that too hard to imagine?
It isn’t so much a matter of skill really. Just, there’s a random probability that any electronic device will catch fire because the manufacturer cheaper out on some component. If you’ve screwed around with the internals, it takes it from the “obviously not my fault” scenario to “there is an argument to be had.” Being right but having to argue with your insurance company anyway is still a pain, right?
> Funny how there is always someone who posts "you do X, and you will fail" ...
That is not what the post to which you replied said nor implied. Instead, it reads thusly:
Dishwasher electronics are subject to elevated heat and
humidity levels. A DIY solution will be extremely
unreliable. An amateurish job on the power electronics can
be a fire hazard and will void any insurance policy if they
find out what you did.
> Maybe someone who is skillful enough to be able to DIY a micro-controller will also think about these issues and deal with them too?
Maybe all people who attempt such things are not aware of the concerns raised?
99% of people who played with an Arduino in school are not EEs and are woefully unqualified to be doing that sort of tinkering for a hardwired appliance managing high voltages, water valves, and heating elements that can all cause mayhem when a self-taught Dunning-Krugerian steps out of their wheelhouse.
The "control board" which has all the high voltage stuff is totally separate from the computer. What Jeff wants to is totally reasonable, if a bit annoying because the computer bit is installed inside the door rather than externally accessible like the control board.
> will void any insurance policy if they find out what you did.
That sounds draconian, do you have any examples of home insurance policies that do this? Is this common in reality?
Home insurance terms are generally long and written to try to avoid paying out. Not sure of the specifics for home insurance, but car insurance is generally written to void cover if modifications have been done to the car which were not called out at the time the cover was started.
The world used to be driven by DIY. Now, people are afraid of it (or advocate against it) in some way. What changed?
People living in shared spaces. If you burn down your house in a village, there's a good chance this can be stopped before it reaches your neighbor's a few hundred meters away. If you burn down your apartment, there are now multiple neighbors without a home.
> the reality is I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation
That's a bit of a sunken-cost fallacy.
Here is a device that is going to be used every day for the coming 5 to 10 years, with a least 3 useful functions that cannot be accessed, and it's going to annoy you every time you use it.
Some devices simply have to work without friction, and that is worth spending home maintenance time on (and our hard-earned cash). Dishwashers, washing machines, printers..
Life is too short to waste time and energy on those, and I would argue that the energy, time, friction and annoyance you are probably going to encounter on the lifetime of that device is probably more than the 6 extra hours that would have been spent returning this unit.
Just my 2c, from the sideline, not walking in your shoes.
Jeff has 5 kids (mentioned in the video). I'm surprised he had 6 hours to fluff around with a dishwasher in the first place. I have 2 and certainly am careful about how I spend any free time I manage to find.
I didn't watch the video, so I didn't know the specifics, although he did mention a tight schedule and children in his post.
But especially in such a case, I still believe that the general point stands. If time and energy is tight, you cannot afford to have friction points due to the appliances you use daily, because the friction they cause is a perpetual reoccurrence that is really energy draining.
I understand that time is short and budgets can be tight, but on such things, put the effort and the money in to make sure they work the first time around, and to make sure they stay out of our way.
Life is too short to be the slave of the malfunctioning devices around us, and it's only once the re-occurring low-level friction points are gone that we generally realize how draining they can be in everyday life.
For what it's worth I have an 800 series and it also made some features like delay start app-only. Even if I was ok with that it's still a terrible design for a multi-person household. See also: cars that are going app-only for remote start.
>If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours
>Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher.
So you'd rather waste more time, probably days or weeks, on a hack where Bosch can change implementation anytime, than return it?
People will make the choices that are rational for them. When your job is making content about hacking stuff, wasting 8 hours on hacking a dishwasher that both generates content and generates useful information for other people is a better use of time than wasting 4 hours returning a dishwasher in the hopes that you personally will be the straw that breaks the IoT camel’s back.
Returning an appliance though will leave you without that appliance for a while. Attempting to reverse-engineer it shouldn't affect his ability to clean dishes and is also fun to do.
> I've already sunk about 6 hours total into the whole operation...
I suspect you're going to sink a whole lot more time over the unsatisfactory lifetime of the dishwasher. It sounds like the sunk-cost fallacy.
Out of curiosity, how long did 'ya spend on that blog post, the YouTube video, and various platforms reading/answering comments related to this experience?
Do you have a Home Depot or Costco near buy that offers free installation and haul away? Most people who get these appliances have the store do all of the work you did.
It’s cheap but it’s not available for 1+ months so you have to live without a dishwasher for a month. Idk about your family but mine would struggle for more than a week without one
If only there were some temporary method to get dishes clean without a dishwasher. Because it is temporary, it would be acceptable if the method required more human labor than the dishwasher method.
If only a person were to do some math and realize that spending four hours installing a dishwasher is less time than doing dishes by hand for a month. (and dealing with 50% odds of getting a terrible install by grumpy people who ding up stuff in your kitchen)
I mean I could but time is money. Time spent washing dishes could be better spent installing the dishwasher.
Yea, most places will do the install for free/cheap. At some point you have to choose how much your time is worth.
Well, that's true on the face of it. But, at least where I live, this service can be hit-and-miss. The retailer of both my dishwasher and washing machine provided this service, and both times it was a shoddy job.
On the dishwasher, they had a hard time routing the hoses properly, so the unit was sticking out something like 3 cm from under the furniture. I had to redo it myself.
On the washing machine, they routed one of the pipes with too narrow an angle, so that the water wouldn't come out. Fortunately, to the point of this post, the machine was "smart" enough to figure this out and complain about it (via a code on its display).
Yup. It's time to replace the controlboard with an ESP32 or something! Did you keep your old dishwasher?
I'm having a local appliance recycler pick it up tomorrow — they aggregate these machines, repair various ones using parts from non-working units, and get them back into use again. I'd rather that than it sit in my house until I get time to hack it together again.
Hey Jeff, I follow you on YouTube. I hope you're recovering well. Wishing you all the best.
Except if customers like you don't take a stand now then by the time you get a replacement all the other Brands (some of which are made by the same company as Bosh appliances) will have likely moved to the same bullshit.
How long did it take to write the blog post
Those products will earn profits to the producers after sale by bundling ads onto the app. Since the cost of producing the networking is less than projected sales, every unit will sooner or later have said networking and app. The app-only dishwashers will then out compete other dishwashers, slowly replacing all alternatives to app-only dishwashers outside "industry dishwashers" which will be app-free but cost 10x that of a dishwasher sold to the private consumer.
Try buy a TV without smart features. You can, but then you got to buy one intended for hotels and pay the market price for products intended for that market.
> Try buy a TV without smart features.
Easy. Just buy a dumb monitor. Why do you even need the TV tuner?
Size. I don't think you can buy a 60" monitor.
"Digital signage display" is what you are looking for in this case. I don't think they are cost competitive, though.
This ain't true at all. Do you have public no-password wifi? I presume not, then just don't enter wifi password in it and voila, no ads, no smart features, just plug that HDMI cable, switch input and run whatever you need from it for next 10 years.
But if you have the idea you want internet-connected TV but somehow 'not smart' (not even understanding what it means) but without ads then yeah good luck, they are baked into OS even if manufacturer didn't want them. And there is no such manufacturer I know of.
Although, I have cheap 75" TCL one and the only ads I see in past 2 years are those youtube itself inserts, while using all default apps that came with it (plus VLC for more video formats and generally better player). What other ads areas are there?
Bundling ads and selling data. Double revenue stream, double incentive for enshittification.
Also the marginal cost of an app is basically $0, whereas the marginal cost of hardware like buttons and 7-segment displays is >$0, so it's tempting (if you expect to sell a lot of dishwashers) to replace hardware with an app.
Have to agree. The bottom line is that manufactures will continue to pull this trick as long as consumers keep buying. Even Jeff himself says that
> I don't think we should let vendors get away with this stuff.
But he _did_ let the vendor get away with it. That’s exactly what he did. He even spent a significant part of the article anticipating the push back by trying to reason why in his case he felt justified in doing so (because he’s busy, because he couldn’t wait a few days hand washing, because of family constraints), but presumably.. you shouldn’t?
So I don’t get it. It’s precisely the “do as I say, not as I do” that we have this problem. There is an immediate benefit to the saying part, on social media, the social signalling, etc (especially immediate for a YouTuber), but not so much for the doing part.
And I say that as largely a supporter, Jeff Geerling seems to be one of the good guys. Which I guess is why we are where we are?
I can hear Jeff's argument (in this very thread), that as a video creator, taking a public stance is an already impactful way to put pressure on the manufacturer. That's leverage enough for him.
Last comment, promise.
I think there may even be an argument that a stance like this can do more damage than good. It may actually normalize the view that it's sufficient to promote on social media but ultimately take no action. There's a danger of furthering a sense of complacency where we want to do the right thing, but where sufficiency in "the right thing" has been normalized down to a grumble and a tweet rather than to actually take real action at any real personal cost.
Alternatively put, if everyone else doesn't do the hard bit, why should I?
Consider real leadership that makes the hard choices and leads by example. You see a friend step up against something at cost to them, and it's that what motivates you to join them. Leading by example is what motivates people.
I think it would have been so much more effective if Jeff returned the dishwasher. People see that personal cost and it _means something_. Otherwise why bother? I mean, that's what Jeff does, right?
Yes, his replies in a neighbor comment is exactly to that effect and of course one has to agree. But it is also notable that if i dare summarise from his parallel comment, he would have loved to return the dishwasher too but that this has already cost him so much time that “I don't know if I have the time for it.”
So here's the thing. It would be unfairly cynical to suggest that Jeff is only doing this to further his own content as a content creator. I think most would agree that Jeff is also frustrated by this and wants to push back. And as someone with influence any impact he can make is undoubtedly a good thing. It's even easier to say nothing at all.
But it is also hard to separate out to what degree the motivation to put in the effort to write an article, produce and edit a video stems from the desire for content and what stems for the desire for real change. It is somewhat telling that he had the time and motivation to produce the video (which is also a ton of work), but not to return the dishwasher?
Real advocacy has to go beyond influencers promoting causes that already align with their target audience. We have to go beyond just saying things on social media in the belief that that is somehow sufficient to "do our bit". Otherwise we can kid ourselves that we're doing good, when are we really, really? Real advocacy requires real change, and that's the hard bit.
I'll add that the fact that this article is already "22 hours ago" and is now largely now in the past somewhat proves the point. Attention has already moved on, actual opportunity to lead by example avoided and the cycle continues. And companies know this, which is why such practices are on the rise (the real evidence).
I agree.
And Consumer Reports (which I am a "member") needs to call them out and hard for this.
Jeff's opposition to this technology is not based on principle, rather it is based on the question of convenience of a few hours of time. A lot of commenters reacting to this story based on principle should take note of how many others gripe but roll over for it. Certainly, vendors are taking note of that.
My hope—which has been borne out by some correspondence I've already gotten today—is that some other consumers may be spared the experience I had.
Since I have a tiny bit of reach online, I figured I'd use it FWIW to maybe impact Bosch's sales by like 0.000001%. Because that's better than 0.000000001% :)
We are going to be replacing our dishwasher in the next year and Bosch is off my list for now. I’m a little afraid I’ll find out that a dishwasher wanting engagement is the new normal.
Our current dishwasher is a GE and it does a great job washing dishes, but has developed a few quirks that leads me to believe we are living on borrowed time.
My five year old GE dishwasher has WiFi and a "Smart HQ" app, which also connects to my GE ovens. I used it for a while, and then it stopped working and required an update, and re-authorization. I never re-authorized, and I don't really miss the "smart" connectivity. The most annoying thing (for me) about all of this is that the GE ovens have a nice easy-to-read digital clock, but the clocks use a low-quality reference oscillator (apparently not the 60Hz line frequency), so they drift. After spending some time researching, I was able to get the oven clocks to use NTP via (isolated vlan) WiFi, without needing to use the app at all. Unfortunately, the clocks still need to be manually updated twice year when DST kicks on and off.
I did try all of the configuration possibilities with regard to DHCP:
dhcp-option=option:ntp-server,132.163.96.1
dhcp-option=option:time-offset,0xFFFF8F80 #(Standard time)
#dhcp-option=option:time-offset,0xFFFF9D90 #(Daylight time)
dhcp-option=option:posix-timezone,'PST8PDT7,M3.2.0/02:00,M11.1.0/02:00'
I've never actually found any IoT device that recognizes or correctly uses these.
I've no idea if the newer GE products are still this bad, but I'll be shopping for "dumb" appliances on the next appliance refresh cycle.
>but these products have to be rejected at retail
That only works if other options don't have these requirements.
Having recently bought new appliances, they almost all have some features gated behind "the cloud".
Even many exhaust fans (that go above your stove) have wifi now!
I sooooo want to return our Ninja Creami Deluxe, recently purchased at Costco. If it sits for ~ an hour or more after use then it cannot be turned on again until unplugged and plugged back in to the wall. From Googling, it seems that Ninja started out doing warranty replacements for the issue but now have shifted to "its a safety feature".
I know it would be super easy to return or exchange at Costco. But my spouse likes it, I am pretty certain that any replacement unit is going to have the exact same issue, and it was a pretty good price.
I'm sorry for being a bad consumer!
I'm not sure there's enough consumers to fight back against this. Most consumers are too focused on other things to worry about being locked in or screwed over by appliance companies. Acceptance.
One thing I've learned when buying a full set of appliances couple of years ago: don't read consumer reports or reviews by randos on the internet -- instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers. They have actual hard data on the types and frequency of problems across brands and models.
But back to the main theme of the article: hell to the no was my initial attitude, and I went out of my way to make sure my appliances were as simple as possible. Still, three out of the five were "wifi-enabled" and promised a world of app-enhanced wonders. Needless to say, none of these ever even got anywhere near being set up, and I think I am lucky, all the normal, expected appliance features work without requiring these extras.
The idea of remotely preheating my oven while I am not home still makes me shudder.
Download and read the manual before buying a product. I avoided buying an air filter recently because the manual made it clear that there was no auto mode, which I would have expected at the price.
Downloading the manual may have helped Jeff dodge this product.
Web search has become a nightmare for consumer purchase research - it's all affiliate driven. Even the old traditional trusted names are just phoning it in with affiliate content churn.
Where can you find these service/warranty reports?
It's been a while, so these may be out of date:
- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide
- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...
- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...
Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.
That first link lists Bosch as the #1 recommended dishwasher by technicians, haha.
Thanks for the links though.
The best friend you can make is an appliance repair man. Ask him which brands are good and which bad, and you'll rarely be steered awry
I asked the local appliance repair man which was the best brand for kitchen appliance reliability and he said Bosch.
> Needless to say, none of these ever even got anywhere near being set up,
I have an LG soundbar never set up, or connected to any wifi.
and when my phone gets near it, it asks to connect to an airplay device.
I think that might be a fatal flaw to even getting a wifi enabled device - maybe someone in the adjacent apartment can do the initial setup if you didn't.
hopefully these devices have a physical component to initial setup, and are not succeptible to denial-of-service type attacks.
I live in an apartment. When I go to my living room, a pop-up shows on my phone (Samsung Galaxy) asking if I want to connect to a Samsung TV and cast my phone.
The catch is: I don't have any Samsung TV in my home. It's the neighbours TV. It happened even when my Bluetooth was disabled, somehow the phone still reached the TV wirelessly.
Thank God there's a setting to turn this "feature" off.
I have a Samsung TV (never connected to the the internet in any form, just connected to my PC via HDMI) and a Samsung phone and never had either ask anything about the other. Curious what would trigger that. Possible that I disabled things I know I won't need and forgot about it.
I have wifi enables debices that I decided to build myself because in that market segment nobody offered a no-bullshit option that works with home-assistant.
Where do you find this data? The average person is going to use Google and because Google sucks they'll end up on some shill review site.
It's been a while, so these may be out of date:
- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide
- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...
- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...
Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.
> The idea of remotely preheating my oven while I am not home still makes me shudder.
Electric ovens can be terrifying when they fail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrL_9K7rCz8
Mine was throwing a lot more sparks than in this video. It sounded like fireworks were going off in my kitchen.
What's the failure mode here? Heating coil making contact with the outer casing? Shouldn't that be caught by a residual-current circuit breaker?
In any case, generating lots of heat inside the oven is probably safer than doing it outside it.
> don't read consumer reports or reviews by randos on the internet
I like the idea of using industry literature, but I think consumer reviews have value too. Much smaller purchase, but I was considering a new travel thermos and all the professional review were praising it. As soon as I pulled up some consumer reviews though, it was almost universal that after washing it for the first time, it smelled of garlic and soy sauce. Apparently this issue was around for at least three years (into today).
Not sure why that got passed over by all the professionals (maybe a lack of time spent with the product), but I was glad I read the consumer reviews as well.
I don't gp was suggesting to trust professional reviewers but rather professionals who actually have to work with/repair the product in question.
But I do agree that that won't cover everything. Issues that need repair are a big concern but so is usability when the damned things are working "properly".
> instead, go to industry literature, and read reports by/for service and warranty providers.
I'm joining the others in saying I don't know where to find this info...
It's been a while, so these may be out of date:
- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide
- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...
- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...
Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.
I ask my friends and colleagues. Lots of them have Bosch dishwashers and they all love them, without exception. That's why I bought mine. Ask me in 10 years whether that was wise...
It would help if you’d have posted an example of reports for service and warranty.
It's been a while, so these may be out of date:
- https://blog.puls.com/top-appliance-brands-2020-guide
- https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4039866/National%20Appliance%...
- https://blog.yaleappliance.com/is-consumer-reports-accurate-...
Also: please do your own homework, you should be able to find all this once pointed in the right direction.
I usually go through manuals if I’m worried about something specific. There’s no need to rely on reviews when you can get an answer directly from the manufacturer.
Jeff shows manual explicitly saying when you need an app, so this could have been avoided.
Consumer reports has been not just bad but actively untrustworthy ever since they framed the Samurai, probably before.
Consumer reports for me embodies the phenomenon where, whenever I have even cursory familiarity with the subject material, their reporting (ratings/reviews) become laughably inaccurate and misinformed from my perspective.
> When I posted on social media about this, a lot of people told me to return it.
>
> But I spent four hours installing this thing built into my kitchen.
I sympathize with the author and what Bosch is doing here is ridiculous and I am fully against it.
But, they're not going to care about your complaints. Returning it and hitting them in the pocketbook is really the only way consumers have to send messages that companies hear.
It's a pain, but if you truly care about this, you, sadly, have to put in extra effort to fight back.
If someone has "influencer" power they could drag it into the back yard and light it on fire for a Youtube video.
See how Bosch likes the power of web ads.
If your audience is big enough, your complaints can end up hitting their pocket book.
Exactly. I'm in the market for a Dishwasher and was highly considering a Bosch based on all the positive reviews from CR and such. Now I'm not considering them at all.
Shame on CR for not calling this out. I've become a little mistrustful of them in recent years after having not-great experiences with their high-rated products, and great experiences with products that they didn't rate at all. This adds to my mistrust.
Evidently his complaint is worth less than the amount of effort to return the dishwasher, so it can't be worth that much.
Return and replace. Which counting installation costs approaches the value of the dishwasher.
Isn't it kind of silly going "YOU fix this problem I'm complaining about" in the first place? If he isn't willing to return the machine, why would anyone else bother?
You can also look up their board's email addresses and send a complaint direct to them.
I look forward to Jeff inserting a "Bosch Sux" interstitial into his Youtube videos.
Jeff, you left out the juiciest part of the story, which is that the Bosch Home Connect iPhone app hoovers up your Search History data. Anyone know how much that data is worth? I made the same mistake of buying the 500 and it's just so ridiculous that I need to reveal my most intimate Google moments to a dishwasher in order to use its advanced features which I won't. When I was building Internet technology in the 1990s and optimistic about the future, never in my fiercest nightmares could I have predicted that this is how normies would use it and that it'd be considered normal. What kind of monster do you have to be to use home appliances as leverage to spy on people? There seriously needs to be a different planet for people like us.
There's a bit of a mix-up here. The “Search History Data – Not Linked with You” label you see on the App Store refers only to the searches you perform within the Home Connect app—not your full Google search history. Given that iOS apps run in a sandboxed environment, there's no way for the app to access your Google account. It’s a standard practice among smart home devices to enhance functionality, not to spy on your entire digital life.
I live in an apartment building whose walls don't really attenuate RF at all. And like most of the building I have a Samsung "smart" TV. So most evenings I get three or four screencast requests from neighbors' phones that I have to deny. That's annoying enough but it also stops whatever I'm watching in the process.
The manual didn't include instructions for turning off Bluetooth, and when I called Samsung they said you in fact can't turn it off. I could simply pull the antenna, I guess, but it seems to be integrated with the WiFi so then I couldn't watch any streaming.
I ended up changing the BT device name to "STOP USING THIS ONE" but apparently nobody reads it because I still get the connection requests daily.
I’d probably just turn off Bluetooth / WiFi and get a setup box like Apple TV, Roku etc. which usually is much nicer than the TV OS anyway. The only time I’m interacting with my TVs UI is when I’m switching input channels.
Ditto. AppleTV or Nvidia Shield (with custom launcher). Personally, I'm now in with AppleTV. I had two Shields and hated when they pushed an update a few years ago to stock android that pushed ads (to services I didn't subscribe to) and that was it for me. There werent as many custom launchers as there are nowadays, but still, went to AppleTv and have been happy. That said, I'd stay clear with Roku with their latest shenanigans as they continue to test their customer's limits with ads now on their home screen [1]. Granted this is on their TV sets, I would still stay clear of their dedicated set-top boxes as it's only a matter of time when they push their limits there too [2].
[1] <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/roku-says-unpopular-...>
LTT made a video [0] where they tried "5G blocking paint" in real world scenario, this is always an option if you like black.
> I live in an apartment building whose walls don't really attenuate RF at all.
I wonder if there's a market for special panels that block sound and common wifi/bluetooth bands...
> So most evenings I get three or four screencast requests from neighbors' phones that I have to deny. That's annoying enough but it also stops whatever I'm watching in the process.
I'd be tempted to call support every single time, and feign that I simply can't understand why their product that I purchased keeps breaking...
I reinstalled a BLE inspect app to troubleshoot something, and I was shocked at the sheer amount of Samsung TVs (and I own none) I had to wade through to find my device. The fact they're all in discoverable mode at all times makes opening my regular Bluetooth just as bad, too.
>So most evenings I get three or four screencast requests from neighbors' phones that I have to deny
What happens if you accept it? Do you just see your neighbors screen? This sounds like something terrifying enough to convince your neighbors to pay attention.
Simply rename the device “malware” at this point.
It wouldn’t make a difference
Hmmm, if only there was some actual malware exploit which would configure "victim" devices so that they would never connect to something of the exact same bluetooth/wifi name ever again.
Then you could pick an improbable name and run a rather spicy honeypot for a while,, until there's no more activity. Then it'd be safe to turn it off and bring the real device online.
Required reading: Unauthorized Bread by Cory Doctorow (excerpt: [0]; part of his book Radicalized [1])
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicalized_%28Doctorow_book%2...
Or the poor mans version, "Please drink verification can" - http://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png
reminds me of some dystopian short story I read somewhere, where society moves to a nearly full advertising economy, and everyone has to be an influencer about all the food / things they consume for the day, streaming themselves on camera live 24/7
And all this stuff could work directly locally, it'd even make alternatives possible and it'd be an immensely better experience. It would eliminate the latency it takes for the requests to reach halfway across the world and back. It would also eliminate a lot of the privacy and security concerns.
What makes it worse is that these cloud connections also tend to be insecure and unreliable or both. I've seen multiple vendors (including Miele) make unencrypted connections to their cloud. (Try blocking port 80 outgoing on your firewalls.)
I've also set up a bit of monitoring for a few appliance manufacturer's clouds - these cloud services have outages all the damn time. To an extent it makes sense given that nobody is explicitly paying for them. On the other hand it's a terrible omen for the longevity of such services. (I can't wait to buy an expired appliance manufacturer's domain.)
I can't imagine a solution to this mess either besides legislation, like forcing some open access at least on EOL.
I'm hoping that the Matter protocol will help with local home automation. It is designed to work on the local network using IPv6 networking, with gateway between Wifi and Thread. The downside is that it is complicated from everybody involved in design.
The goal is that device companies will want to get rid of cost of developing cloud software, and effectively outsource it to Apple, Google, etc.
Apple's tempo so far has been abysmal, so I wouldn't hold my breath. We can hope though.
Unencrypted protocols basically are open access. It's easy to reverse engineer, and then you can just point the DNS address of their cloud at your server to make it work locally (or worst case hijack their IP). It's the encrypted connections that you need to be wary of.
I recently bought and installed the same dishwasher. I also don't like the app requirement to access some features. But contrary to some of the other comments, I feel the need point out that it's still a fully functional dishwasher even if you never connect it to Wifi.
You will miss out on a few "advanced" features, but it washes dishes really well. I read the manual before I bought it, and I got the performance I expected. I would have preferred to have access to a rinse cycle and a cleaning mode, but I don't need them. It definitely gets my dishes much cleaner than the old failing one I replaced, and I have no complaints so far about its performance.
A few more notes while I'm here:
Yes, partially unscrew the front legs with a wrench before you put it in place. They are too tight. Partially adjust the rear leg before you put it in too. The diagram is confusing and may not adjust the leg in the direction you think it will. I wonder if this is what happened to Jeff.
The dishwasher apparently will refuse to connect to a Wifi network without a password. For mostly philosophical reasons I don't want to add a password to my network, and this is part of the reason I haven't connected it.
Note that the Costco version (at least in my area) is a subtly different model that does not include the automatic door opening "Auto Air" feature. Since this is one of the best features of this model, you should not buy it from Costco unless you verify it comes with this.
The "touchless" buttons are annoying. It frequently beeps and comes to life when I'm just trying to open the door. The interface as a whole isn't great, and I sometimes worry it's not set correctly. But once you figure it out, it will wash your dishes quietly and effectively.
I'm curious—what are the philosophical reasons for not having a password on your network?
It's a mixture of things, some philosophical and some practical.
I live in a very rural area with poor cell phone coverage. I'm happy to provide a WiFi signal for the lost people who are in front of my house trying to figure out why their GPS has led them here. We get a few each year, because Google Maps shows the road past my house going through while in reality it's closed in winter.
I also like it that I don't need to play the "what's the password" game with houseguests. I like that I don't need to input passwords to screenless devices using clumsy and slow input methods. I like the idea that the default should be sharing what you can afford to share rather than keeping everything private by except by special arrangement.
More generally, I don't think that closed networks substantially improve security and I don't like the push to require them. It's great to have the option to keep people off of your network through passwords or MAC filtering, but I don't like it being the default. I don't like technology that tries to enforce its own opinion about social norms.
Contrary to the other poster, it's not laziness. At this point it's frequently more difficult to host an open network than a password protected one. It might not be a good idea, but it's a conscious choice.
You could always run two wifi network SSIDs (depending on your gear I guess). Then you have the ability to have open wifi for guests, but also keep your other devices on a segregated network as an extra layer in your personal security profile.
I definitely could, and technically it would be easy. This is probably the way most people would solve this. But I don't because I don't like giving in to opinionated technology. But I may end up doing so if I eventually encounter a home appliance where I really do want to connect to it.
These are all practical reasons, not really philosophical. Unless any form of logic is philosophical but then everything is.
If your claiming your philosophical stance is setting passwords doesn’t provide security, by your own reasoning in your case that’s just a matter of practicality. There is no philosophical argument.
> More generally, I don't think that closed networks substantially improve security and I don't like the push to require them.
I mean that’s just your opinion, not a philosophical stance, and it happens to be a empirically demonstrably false one.
> I don't like technology that tries to enforce its own opinion about social norms.
This statement is so vague it’s practically useless. It can just be selectively applied against anything you don’t like. All technology is opinionated. From the layout of your keyboard to this site, everything is shaped by and shapes social norms. It would also be an opinionated technology if it decided not to ask you to set a password by default. You might as well have said I don’t like WiFi passwords because I don’t like WiFi passwords and it would’ve carried the exact same message.
Gratuitously, maybe he has a device that can’t connect to WiFi network with a password. Realistically, probably just laziness. Neither of these are philosophical though…
> But contrary to some of the other comments, I feel the need point out that it's still a fully functional dishwasher even if you never connect it to Wifi.
Thanks. Some of the other comments are implying that they’re missing something important without WiFi but nobody seems to want to explain what’s missing.
Can you explain what features are missing without the WiFi connection?
> It says options with an asterisk—including Rinse, Machine Care (self-cleaning), HalfLoad, Eco, and Delay start, are "available through Home Connect app only and depending on your model."
Fully functional, if you don't mind a dishwasher with less functionality than 40 years ago when the buttons were still physical locking buttons with springs.
I think this manual page shows what's available with and without the app: https://www.manua.ls/bosch/shx65cm5n/manual?p=5
Available cycles from the buttons: Heavy, Auto, Normal, Speed 60, Favorite
Available options from the buttons: Auto Air, Sanitize
Additional cycles from the app: Rinse, Machine Care
Additional options from the app: Halfload, Eco, Delay
I believe that with the app you can set one of the additional cycles to be the "Favorite" button, but I haven't tried this.
Seems like this Home Connect stuff does support local only/no cloud mode[0]. I recently discovered my parent's kitchen hardware is all Bosch with Home Connect and was afraid I had to run it through their cloud. But there seems to be some decent effort done in getting it to work with Home Assistant[1].
[0] https://trmm.net/homeconnect/ [1] https://github.com/hcpy2-0/hcpy
This should really be the top answer.
From link [0]:
However, perhaps inline with the German attitudes towards privacy, the BSH "HomeConnect" appliances have a no-cloud mode built into their app without any hacks required to disconnect them from the internet. They do require a one-time connection to perform key exchange of a long-live authorization key, but from then on the appliances can be operated entirely disconnected from the network.Jeff mentions it in the post:
> Another third option is somebody has reverse engineered this protocol and built HCPY, a Home Connect Python library.
> But here's the problem: I already spent like four hours getting this dishwasher installed in my kitchen. I don't want to spend another four hours configuring my own web UI for it—which still requires at least a one-time connection through Home Connect!—and maintaining that as a service on my local network, relying on an unauthorized third party library using reverse-engineering to get at the private dishwasher API!
When buying a new washing machine and dryer, I actually spent hours extra to find models /without/ app requirements last summer. There were so few of them that did what I wanted, and also didn't require internet access that I'm worried the next time around there will be no more options where I can elect to keep them off the net. :/
While CR has the ability to filter by Wifi or not, as time goes on, this will drop to zero. What they don't do is say if the functionality is gated behind 1) an app and 2) behind internet connectivity, they aren't the same.
Has anyone else looking at this looked into the prosumer / commercial space? I suspect that market will have a lot less tolerant for digital bullshit.
This was the approach I took when purchasing a TV. Getting a TV without a microphone and Wi-Fi connectivity is borderline impossible... in the consumer segment.
My living room is now furnished with a digital signage monitor and a soundbar.
The price was a touch more than a normal TV of a similar size, and there was not much variety (I had to give up on OLED at the size I wanted for example), but I just have such a hatred for the constant nagging for Wi-Fi and terms of use acceptance nags my parents' new TV had.
If your product is cheaper because you sell my data to the highest bidder, just let me outbid them please.
What TV? I ended up getting a cheap Sceptre since it didn't have any smart nonsense. Not the greatest picture in the world but that's okay
I connected my TV to the internet when I set it up (also, turned off microphone ad tracking which is deep deep in settings), then connected it to an AppleTV and cut the internet to the TV at the router. I can switch it if I need to, but never have in the year since I purchased the TV.
By the end of the day, most kitchen and laundry appliances are a bunch of electric motors, pumps, solenoids, compressors, resistances, buttons, switches, and sensors.
If this trend continues, we will have more and more people having bricked appliances as badly designed web services are inevitably sunset, as mobile apps without updates become incompatible with new versions of their phone OS and get delisted from App Stores by the manufactures. Or then, Wi-Fi standards will change, and the appliance won't be able to connect to the network unless you keep an obsolete and by then insecure hotspot just to serve it.
Given that, I wonder if there isn't going to be a business opportunity for creating after-market appliance controllers. Just a board that you can use to replace the one that came with your appliance, but without any factory-controlled web-service nonsense.
This is already a thing for split air-conditioner units. In fact, I even saved one with such an aftermarket board.
That's why all good ol devices have electromechanical cams instead of electronics.
A bonus is that high power MOSFETs have a tendency to crap out and relays have a limited lifetime of a given number of switches guaranteeing that eventually youll need to throw out your whole, otherwise basically flawless devices due to dead electronics.
I was pleasantly surprised that Yamaha flirted with this then backed off. My receiver is connected to the LAN since this is helpful for streaming, and it has a companion MusicCast app for controlling it on the WiFi or playing audio stored on your phone. No messing around with accounts, it just works. A year or two ago the app started regularly pestering you to register an online account. I, along with who knows how many other people, sent them an annoyed email promising that if an account ever became required my receiver would spend the rest of its days on OPTICAL1 with a different smart frontend. Quietly, the in-app popups stopped. For now, life is good.
This is not only a problem with dishwashers, but a general trend with many electronic devices.
We see the same in the air quality monitoring industry, where more and more manufacturers lockdown their devices and make them cloud only operable. We at AirGradient are open source hardware (and can run completely local) and we are very successful with it. So things like this are actually opening up the market for new entrants or existing companies to highlight the benefits of non-cloud models for the consumers.
So I do hope that these kind of post like from Jeff Geerling create more awareness also among the normal consumers to change their buying behavior and bulk that trend.
I was in a similar situation with a clothes dryer dying where the repair required a board that was half the price of a new one. A key difference is that I had a professional appliance repair guy look at it and he determined it needed a new board. Rather than buy a new machine like Jeff did, I made the opposite decision and paid for the board. It has been a few years since that and I have been happy with the result. I was spared from having a dryer that did not match the washing machine so I not only saved the half the cost of the dryer, but the cost of a new washer too.
The problem is the control board/electronics was not the only thing going south on that GE unit.
The door hinges were giving way, the door gasket had started to get iffy (not quite leaking yet, but it needs a new one), the top rack doesn't go in and out easily anymore...
All those parts aren't even made to be fixable anymore. At least if it's a pump or control board, those are relatively swappable. The rail system seems to be integrated into the sidewall!
On our old fridge (only like 12 years old), we lived for 6 years with a broken drawer because the slide for it is literally integrated into the inside wall... not repairable at all, without an entire new shell.
If we had a 30 year old device, it would probably all be repairable. Sadly, there seem to be very few consumer options (and nowadays even 'professional' options) that are made with longevity as a feature target.
We have had more luck with our appliances:
* The clothes dryer only needed a new circuit board that cost half of a replacement.
* The microwave only needed a new magnetron that cost the price of a new microwave oven. - Some would find this insane, but none of the new microwaves matched the kitchen decor and replacing everything to make it match the latest fad would have been truly insane.
* The refrigerator’s gasket needed to be pushed back into its groove when it started to come loose.
As for your dish washing machine, we had problems with our first one and heard from a repair guy that you really need to rinse the dishes before putting them into it. Ever since doing that, we have had zero problems with our machine. Maybe that might aid your new one’s longevity.
There are plenty of dishwashers now that will do fine without rinsing the dishes beforehand, even e.g. LG models that are not expensive.
Needing to rinse used to be the norm, but if one buys a dishwasher in the 2020s that won't work without rinsing in advance, one is getting scammed out of their money and time by lazy manufacturers, IMO.
In most modern appliances, if the board is "broken", it's usually just one simple controller and a few resistors. Usually takes only a few minutes soldering.
But in your case it sounds like a replacement was long overdue anyway. Better be careful with appliances that use water.
I live in an apartment building with a shared laundry room (but everyone has their own washing machines) in the basement.
Last month a neighbor's old washing machine - with many pre-existing issues - broke down. The dampeners for the drum failed, and once it started spinning, it just "walked" away, ripping the tap out of the wall.
The water flooded the entire basement a foot deep, including the storage units and underground parking. Took a full day before you could set foot in it again, a whole month before everything was truly dry again, and I lost a lot of things (including lots of old tech).
You were prepared to replace a functioning washing machine just to match a replacement clothes dryer?
If you have guest-facing laundry machines such as a the very trendy washroom/mudroom combo then matching machines is part of the aesthetic. People have spent more on less impactful decor improvements.
I've spent more than the cost of a laundry machine on interior paint for my walls.
Nowhere in the "training you to be an adult" did anyone warn me the cost of paint, nor selection anxiety around finishes, styles, nor the hell that is selecting a color. What _is_ 'Steamed Milk' and why can't I decide between it, 'Casa Blanca', and 'Aged White', and why does it cause so many disagreements?
My mother has been thrilled ever since I gave her a set of matching units. Repairing it to keep things that way was far cheaper than replacing both of them, or even one of them.
I work on embedded appliance software at my job. A few comments:
It's quite easy to find yourself having non-zero boot times for some unfortunate reasons. At least in my org, the software as a whole is RAM/ROM constrained rather than speed constrained. Even when you're this close to bare metal, devs tend to write over-abstracted code riddled with inefficiencies. And of course most people don't profile the application at all. This is a symptom of the software being under-tested imo. I have personally written tooling to integration test the whole application for a few appliances, and for one appliance initializing the application 56 times took over 1 second. On a modern machine it should take milliseconds. After profiling I found that 99%+ of our time was spent servicing a subscription tied to all events, that really only needed to subscribe to just one or two.
Along with that there are other reasons for long apparent boot up times:
- Waiting for other boards to connect and talk to each other. Your UI can't do anything until it knows the state from the main control.
- Randomized delays to prevent current surges after a blackout. You'll see this on ACs or other appliances that might have hundreds of identical units in a building.
- Waiting for flash memory to be readable
All of this adds up to seconds of boot time. Yet ultimately none of this matters to the business people because we're an appliance company, NOT a software company. Our software is mostly incidental to having a functioning product, and boot times could go way higher without the business being worried. Though recently yes, we have entered the data market hence the push for smart features. Word to the wise, avoid any appliance with Android in it if you don't like the idea of forced connected features!
I unfortunately don't have any solutions to most of the problems presented in the article. All I can do is continue to try writing bullet-proof software and push back against forced connected features.
I'm sorry for shitting on your job, but it seems like the solution is to bring back the buttons we had in the 80s and 90s and drop all the software garbage? I don't want a UI, I want an On button.
It's fine, I take every opportunity I can to shit on my own job lol.
Ironically what you're looking for can be found in the lowest end, and the highest end products. Low end means low features, so you can get away with just a knob and maybe a few LEDs. Look at Hotpoint (GE's low end brand) or a low end LG washer [0].
High end usually forgoes a flashy UI as well since it's about the style and being a centerpiece.
The mid end is where it's weird because features justify the extra cost. In order to make those available you need to have an LCD screen and more buttons.
In all these categories you'll run into software though. It's cheaper than a electro-mechanical solution. We only fall back to the old ways when required for safety/compliance.
You will probably find the ones you like with simple interfaces and a few physical buttons for an additional price. Simple things are now premium.
Legal Action Possibilities:
- Product not as advertised, because it failed to disclose the need for a smart phone model supported by their app, and WiFi, and an internet connection, and etc.
- Product is not ADA(?) compliant, because all that extra complexity makes using it too difficult for some disabled people.
- Product is in violation of data security regulations of some US States, or countries, or the EU, because ...
And in theory, any Cory Doctorow fan with the spare time could set up a web site to name & shame all the consumer products which had these "involuntary cloud" features, helping people avoid them.
I think that's somewhat the intent of this wiki (though it's more focused on making things repairable, less on the IoT shenanigans): https://repair.wiki/w/Main_Page#gsc.tab=0
I've been looking for a resource like that for a long time!
-edit- It's currently preeeeeeeetty sparse. Hopefully it (or something like it) catches on in the future.
Appliance manufacturers are not required to manufacture ADA compliant appliances.
Employers, state and local governments, businesses open to the public, commercial facilities, transportation providers, etc, are required to procure ADA compliant appliances where applicable.
Let's not forget compeled agreement to a contract. (You have to agree to the terms of their service in order to access a feature you paid for. Often times that coerces you to give up rights to the data that is produced on your resources [power and network])
You don’t need to use the app to operate the dishwasher. It works absolutely fine as a dumb dishwasher.
Competing brands offer the blocked features without any need for this sort of connectivity, so I'd say ''It works absolutely fine as a dumb dishwasher'' would not be a strong marketing slogan for Bosch.
Every other dishwasher in the price range offers the same features hidden behind the app out of the box.
This one would be fine as a 'dumb' dishwasher, but I wouldn't have paid $900 for a $400 dishwasher if I'd known all the nicer features (like Eco mode or self-cleaning) require an app.
This is why I buy “commercial” appliances when I can. My speed queen washer and dryer each have two knobs and a start button. Thats all you need. I doubt I will need to ever replace them.
Speed Queens are great and very expensive. Many consumers will have sticker shock at their price.
But they last 25 years so they'll save you big bucks in the long run.
Speed Queens are great at destroying your clothing and being very expensive in the process you mean.
Please don’t buy a top loader for the love of your clothing.
I have either the AWNE92SP113TW01 or AWNE82SP113TW01 top load washer for about 7 years, and haven't had any issues with damaged clothing. Once a drawstring from a hoodie got tangled at the bottom of the rotating agitator, but thats it. what problems have you had?
I also don't recall it being very expensive. Maybe $900.
agitators cause pilling, fading, etc. general wear and tear on your clothing that front load washers don't cause
Last I checked, commercial dishwashers are very loud. I’ll trade some longevity for an appliance that is easier to live with.
Miele has some home dishwashers that are not too different from their commercial models.
Really spartan and silent. A knob and two buttons, or a couple of buttons and a led display. The price is also not too bad, around €750.
I have been gravitating towards Miele more and more in recent years. Yes, they are expensive but at least they tend to work a bit - something I can’t say anymore for previously reliable brands like Bosch.
We were searching for a long-lasting washing machine 2 years ago. We asked local electrician shops with their classic Miele sign. Not one but many were recommending us AGAINST Miele due to recent quality problems. One electrician went with us to the models he had in-store. They changed the door now from metal to plastic. While Miele is bragging about their internal tests “our machines are tested to hold up against usage for up to 20 years”, they offer you a meagre 2 years warranty (that is compulsory in Germany). Well, guys, if you brag about your reliability, why can’t you even offer a 3 (!) year warranty for no additional cost if your product cost up to twice the price of a BSH device. “Well, you can purchase warranty extension for additional cost.” FU. …and recently Miele has problems selling their stuff for quality problems and they try to compensate for that by cutting costs by moving production out from Germany.
There is a market for old Miele washing machines. If they get defect, it’s usually shock absorbers or other easily repairable parts. Once repaired they last long. Of course with the higher electricity & water consumption.
Dishwashers… My father in law had rust issue with their dish rack of their Miele dish washer. The replacement part cost > 50% of a new dish washer. So he went with a a new Miele dish washer. Result: The new dish washer uses less water to save water. How does it work with less water? Doubling the runtime. Doubling the runtime doubles the wear and tear of parts. Assuming still same quality parts, the dish washer’s life time is halved. He should have been better off with replacing the dish rack.
That sucks, thanks for the heads up. I guess we bought one of the last decent models then.
Should also point out that even if the model has Wi-Fi, it's optional. (Source: just bought one in EMEA) Even if you set it up, the app can't remotely activate it without the washer being pre-set to the "Remote Start" side of the knob.
My favorite part of my SQ dryer is the big chunky knob dedicated entirely to adjusting the signal level (it's set to "off").
I have this same dishwasher in my apartment (installed by my landlord). It’s not just that it requires a cloud connection for the features, but that the setup is so janky and bug-ridden that I’ve been unable to successfully make it happen.
So I just live without the extra features.
All well and good until "wash dishes" is one of the features that require an app and cloud connection.
Don't laugh. Some HP printers refuse to print, after an initial "free trial" of 25 pages, until you register the printer with the HP app.
I was pleasantly surprised when there was an update to my Flymo robot lawnmower app where they _removed_ the requirement to setup an account to use it. Seems most other companies are going the other way though.
Would be great if Bosch found some magical way to make their firmware work with button combos for the 'hidden' modes. Or to at least make local connection the default, and have a way to set that up without Internet.
I read that there used to be an activation requirement with smart glasses (xreal?) but they waived it if bought on amazon.
I was wondering - maybe they have a deal with amazon that says what serial number was sold to who?
I purposely spend a lot of time ensuring that an appliance (such as dishwasher, fridge, oven etc) has no connectivity before I purchase. Even if it misses out on some of the “better features”.
Surely when all appliances go down this route it will not last long, purely down to the amount of breaches that will inevitably occur. Not to mention the backlash.
We've had this with TVs for like 3 years now... though when they do terrible things, they don't turn off a home's heat or start fires, usually.
A return to dumb TVs would be great. Would gladly pay a premium to have a TV that's just a high quality panel and barely anything else.
What's the problem with having a smart TV but simply never using the smart functions? Mine works perfectly, once in a quarter shows some pup-up that I dismiss and that's it.
BTW I needed to connect it to local network because the remote has no button for changing brightness, so I do that from my PC.
often they have cellular chips and may simply be privacy pests.
I’ve heard this but I’ve never actually heard of any popular brand of TV that integrates cellular. I keep my LG and Sony TVs off the network and I’m 99.9% sure they have no way of accessing the Internet.
I put up with a variety of shitty appliances because I'm a renter in 2025 who doesn't anticipate ever owning a home, but if I were in the business of outfitting my place with appliances, they sure as shit would not be the crap quality touch sensor microwave, oven, and dishwasher we currently use, or the dumbass laundry machines with stupid arbitrary labels for each setting. The fridge is fine, it has a door, that's all it needs to do. I want buttons.
renting nowadays is a nightmare if you dislike this stuff.
You may be forced into:
- "smart" door locks or garage
- wifi connected thermostat
- specific provider for building internet
- various appliances: washer, dryer, fridge, stove, microwave, dishwasher
- "package room provider" with cameras and privacy policy to photo/video of you, your address, your phone number (for access codes)
- and of course the application process...
I'm sure it differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction around the world, but the application processes are categorically insane. Feed all of your personal information, very very personal information, into this form with this provider that will keep it on file and definitely do nothing else with it for X years, or you can't have anywhere to live. It wasn't even so bad when there was only one provider so at least you didn't have to repeat this with multiple different platforms, but the last time I was in the rental market every different agency had their own platform.
I'm sure if you called you could still manage to do an old-fashioned style form, but not only is that a huge inconvenience, I'd be very worried that agencies would just ignore it if the property was popular and had good competition.
In my country you usually browse the advertisements, call the owner, and if you like the apartment (and they like you) you can sign the contract and move in.
I wrote https://andrewkelley.me/post/why-we-cant-have-nice-software.... after going through a similar process - used Consumer Reports, and then purchased exactly the one pictured in the blog article.
> And on my GE Amana dishwasher, it started having weird power issues > like the controls would just not light up unless I reset the circuit breaker
It was eerie to read that, because at ~10 years old my GE Profile dishwasher's logic board died and exhibited all those same behaviours. I followed great advice from techs but then faced the same issue: $400 to get another board, but why gamble?
I purchased a KitchenAid (with front facing, well lit and described buttons) and it has been great, with no WiFi requirement, and I felt the Bosch models were overpriced.
The only feature that would make me want to connect it to the cloud is if it would automatically load the dishes and then put them back in the cupboard when it finished cleaning them.
You joke but Google is working on this now. What if you could have a maid robot in every household, similar to the I, Robot film and book.
https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gemini-robotics-brings...
I actually just purchased a Bosch 500 series two days ago to replace my piece of trash Samsung dishwasher that stopped working. Supposed to be delivered in a week. Was deciding between Bosch and Kitchenaid based on recommendations. This kind of crap in appliances is so annoying. I will cancel my order from Home Depot and get something else. Thank you for this very timely post.
If a home appliance is wifi enabled, just don't buy it. Full stop. This reduces your options, but at least you'll end up with a product that actually functions.
I see that the genius that decided that butonless car dashboards are a good idea, have found a new job, now that the car trend has reversed.
For me the most egregious thing was online account to use my mouse.
Also for dishwashers and washing machines - the eco and other bullshit modes are terrible. Let me waste tad more resources that I will gladly pay for and don't care how greasy the things that I throw in the dishwasher are.
Stuff like this is why I never really trust "Consumer Reports" reviews.
This submission made me chuckle. My last dishwasher purchase was a Bosch based upon Consumer Reports endless praise for the brand. Bought specifically the model they recommended, a big motivator being their "predicted reliability". It was not an expensive model, but it was more expensive than alternatives.
Worst dishwasher I've ever owned. The control panel literally cracked in half in completely ordinary, if not even careful use. Everything about it seem designed to use the cheapest, smallest amount of material.
It was actually the motivator for cancelling my Consumer Reports subscription. It really made me wonder what their incentives really are.
Between them and Wirecutter going to pot, it's a sad day for consumers
Rtings seems good for now, but who knows how long that will last
I don't have a subscription, but will still visit the library sometimes to skim the odd article. CR's problem is...what? They still tailor content to a magazine article size (online content is updated more, but not necessarily deeper), but the magazine today is miniscule due to printing costs? And they really don't have the resources for proper longevity testing?
I believe they still have a letters column, or failing that, an email address. Would highly suggested the OP contact them and complain how they missed the mark.
CR had some good vetting of stuff about 20 years ago, but has really missed the mark over and over recently and I would tend to just ignore them now. Sad, because their premise is very good.
I suppose this means that in the future, when I shop for a home appliance, I'll have to download their manual first and scan for things like this.
Yeah... there was nothing on the product page on Lowes (it was after 10 pm on a busy Saturday, so I didn't have time to dig as deep as I would with a pre-planned purchase) and I thought the 500 series would be consistent from what I had read years ago. There was no indication that certain features (besides Alexa/Google Home integration, lol) would be locked behind the app.
Failing to mention the material fact that the dishwasher barely works without the internet could qualify as consumer fraud round these parts. Private right of action; punitive damages available. (Offer varies by state).
That's definitely strongly advisable already.
And: if you cannot find the manuals readily online, that's another black strike / red flag against the product and vendor.
Unfortunately unavoidable unless you take the cheapest model and miss out on a lot of features you might otherwise like.
I have a pretty high end LG washer/dryer combo that I purchased when I bought my current house (10 years old now, knock on wood; just been a workhorse). It has a steam cycle that has been used maaaaybe 3 times in that period? Of course, it doesn't work quite as well as just ironing...
I inherited an old Maytag dishwasher with the same house that I never got around to replacing. It has like 5-10 cycles...and we only ever use the 1. I have variously thought about replacing it because it is like car engine loud, but it runs a fast cycle and does a decent job and has been bulletproof so far.
Honestly, a lot of these added features feel like weird gimmicks nowadays created by product and marketing teams to differentiate to the consumer shopping based on feature lists and not necessarily to actually add value.
Who's making the workhorse stuff nowadays?
I always think that if you have a very expensive dress you're better of bringing it to a professional dry cleaner service anyway.
Dry cleaning is sometimes needed but water is an amazing cleaner and no chemical solution can come close. Use cold water whenever possible and dry clean only if water can't be used.
My current dishwasher - purchased last year - doesn't require any internet connectivity for any of its features. I don't think it even has the option to connect.
(Although it does have the shitty capacitative buttons that I can never tell whether I've pushed or not.)
The design of dishwashers has been fundamentally the same since their invention. The only real differentiating feature is having a sanitize setting but even cheap dishwashers have that these days.
Dishwashers are actually a bit backwards. The cheapest models have one of the most important features (a heating element for drying), and all the more expensive ones leave it out (for Energy Star) and then screw around with various half measures to try and compensate.
Due to this, trying to read reddit recommendations for dishwashers is horrible. People will wax on about how so and so is the best one they've ever owned, then only if you probe a bit it turns out they're using "rinse aid", hand drying half their dishes, running frequent cleaning cycles to get the musty smell out, etc.
I just got a Miele dishwasher recently, not cheap whatsoever, and there's no wifi or app or anything at all.
> miss out on a lot of features you might otherwise like.
More like ... will never actually need.
Well, it's a matter of debate what is actually "needed." I personally like notifications if it runs out of detergent or someone less savy has loaded the machine and I can choose the correct settings away from home.
In that near future, you should be able to use some kind of an AI Assistant to do this for you
> Cloud should be an add-on.
I don't agree; dishwashers that connect to the Internet should not exist.
At most, a dishwasher's network connectivity should be restricted to the presence of firmware which serves a web UI. Everything should be doable via the web UI, whose commands should ideally be URL-driven, so they can be easily automated with simple requests.
A laser printer doesn't need to connect to the cloud; why does a dishwasher?
I've got a few Bosch appliances. I like the Bosch website where I can get spare parts [1]. When the door spring of my 15 years old dishwasher broke a couple of years ago, I went to the Bosch website, enters the model number and got an exploded view with all the parts. I ordered the spring and replaced it myself. A few minutes of work. Much faster than finding a repair guy with a free appointment slot. My Bosch washing machine has a WiFi label on it. Never connected it. Only using the buttons on the front panels. On the same website, you can get the instruction manual PDF, so I usually have a peek review in the manual of a device before buying. I don't know if that spare parts service is available everywhere but I have used it in 3 European country so far.
I think if you have on of their models with a display at the front you can use all functions without connecting to WiFi.
This is not just dishwashers - robot vacuums are super bad with this one, did not see any with local first app. ACs are just as sketchy. Another opportunity where EU can fix worldwide market.
I haven't read every comment on this thread but it's highly likely that the use of wifi in the appliance is not for the convenience of the consumer, but more likely for the convenience of the designers and anyone having to service it. When building iot devices in the past I found it was a lot easier to interface over wifi than bluetooth, for all sorts of reasons. People who've tried to do both will probably appreciate why - I had to send bytestreams to bluetooth and it was quite complicated and error prone, whereas with wifi I could just make rest calls to the device. This was with an Arduino type device which was part of some customer b2b electronics we had made up for testing. Also some limitation of the Arduino meant it couldn't support bluetooth and wifi connectivity in the same build, possibly because of space limitations.
Anyway, my first thought on reading this was that all this wifi stuff was there anyway for the designers doing build and test and then someone in marketing had come up with the idea that this could also be a consumer feature.
In Europe Bosch has always been the go to quality consumer brand although there are quite a few next tier options such as Miele (which tend to be way more expensive). This is the case with domestic appliances but also with gas central heating boilers. Every year my service engineer says how pleased he is to see my Bosch boiler and how much better they are than other brands.
Netgear did a switcharoo on me after the fact with my Nighthawk. When I got it, I was able to just open the app and manage it locally. I don't remember what it was but the thing I was after definitely worked a lot better from the app. Then they updated it and required you to make a Netgear account to manage your local device. I was able to trick it into thinking I was offline for a while, and I found that would let me log in locally, but eventually that quit working too. I uninstalled the app and then just managed it from Firefox mobile. Their web UI wasn't remotely good, but it worked. Luckily I didn't have to make a ton of changes to it from there on out, since I was just using it as an AP at that point. When I moved, I got a much better AP for the new place.
I am so done with accounts. I purposely use insecure passwords on sites that make me create an account just to view content. I don’t give a shit if someone hacks into my Logitech mouse software account. I really don’t. In fact, the pain it would cause the company would be very positive for me.
Dear Bosch, if you need someone to design a $5 control circuit that will time a few motors and actuators and last 20 years, just give me a call.
They don't. They want you to have to use their cloud service, either to sell data you generate or to try to push you into a subscription of some sort in the future. They're evil, not stupid.
Control circuit - check.
Now I just need a box, some motors and actuators and a lot of waterproofing....
What happens when whatever stupid services this thing relies on stop working/get abandoned?
Related: Is "Internet of Shit" still a thing?
My toilet has Bluetooth. It sometimes crashes. I assume the logfiles are full.
>my GE Amana dishwasher, it started having weird power issues, like the controls would just not light up unless I reset the circuit breaker for a few minutes
And they say EVs will outlast regular cars. On every piece of my home equipment, electronics failed before they developed mechanical issues.
Power electronics, especially capacitors, and high power switching elements don't have a great track record of reliability.
> And they say EVs will outlast regular cars.
Regular/ICE cars are fully dependant on electronics too. When a board fails, the car stops working. There's really no difference.
True, but you can't really compare 12v low voltage ECUs/infotainment with 400/800V DC contactors and tons of high power/voltage caps/FETs in inverters
We have HomeConnect on our new Thermador appliances. I actually went ahead and installed the iOS app and brought everything into Homebridge. (thinking about switching to Home Assistant, though...)
One of the big reasons that I did it is so I'd know when consumables needed to be replaced. The big hope was it would give me a warning when the fridge water filter was full and make buying the exact part easier.
It has failed to do this one thing. But I can get recipes from within the app. I still have no idea what water filter I need and have to try to find the model number.
If you're going to build a cloud setup for appliances, at least make it useful for the end user, eh?
edit: we actually considered a GE washer/dryer for the smart features until I sat down and realized that I was trying to over complicate laundry. We went with a Speed Queen model instead. My dryer now has two knobs and a button to start it.
My washer and dryer are miele, and the remote notifications are useful. I've used some of the remote start features to ensure the machines run when the solar is generating, but that's about it
Honestly I'd have been better with the speed queen and a relay wired into the starter switch.
As for the dishwasher, I rigged up my current one to send me end of cycle alerts by putting a current detector loop around it's power inlet, and alerting when it goes from high to low and stays that way for a period
I don't understand - does the dishwasher not have any indication that it's finished? Mine just turns off the LEDs on the front panel when it's done. I usually don't empty it immediately anyway.
Not a dishwasher story, but related. We bought a whirlpool washer and dryer set and hated them. The set was one of the few name brand models without WiFi "features" added on. But they were still terrible.
The one highlight is that we learned about the brand Speed Queen from the sales person at Lowe's. She talked them up as being the best, but they aren't sold at any big box store. Speed Queen is only sold through mom and pop shops.
When we dug in and did some research, we found that Speed Queen has the best consumer ratings by a wide margin.
They still produce a fixed drum model for the washer, like the type that whirlpool and maytag used to make decades ago. We put up with the whirlpool for a couple of years, but when we moved we got rid of them and bought a fixed drum style Speed Queen (look for the models marketed as "classic clean"). Best consumer appliance I've ever owned. I expect it to last at least another 20 years.
Like, sure—I can download a new ringtone for my dishwasher… but you know what the dumbest thing about internet-connected appliances is?
I still can’t set my oven clock without doing some weird finger kung-fu combo. Why? WHY?? Why can’t it just sync with my phone or, I don’t know, the internet—like literally every other clock on every other device does now?
And don’t even get me started on the range hood. Why can’t I have the light turn on automatically, say, an hour after sundown? Or have the fan kick in when the gas turns on? That would actually be useful! But nope—no timer, no automation. The only feature my Wi-Fi-enabled range hood has is pure, unfiltered disappointment.
Or take my fridge. Why can’t it send me a photo of what’s inside while I’m at the grocery store? Or tell me how often (and when) I open the door every day? I know it’s tracking that data—just show me a copy instead of feeding it straight to Zuck!
Honestly, the features these things come with right now are all pretty much useless. And the worst part? Leaving them connected means someone could just push a kill command one day that bricks my garbage disposal. “Oh, profits are down this quarter? Time to end-of-life that model from 6 months ago!”
If you want your lights or music connected to the internet, I can understand that, but NO HEAT PRODUCING APPLIANCES SHOULD BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. If someone wants to burn down your house, make them come over and do it the old fashioned way. Do not let them do it remotely from another country.
My current Bosch dishwasher that I bought almost 10 years ago does almost all of this (no eco mode or self-clean, though it does have a sanitize cycle which I would guess is effectively the same) with physical buttons and a 7 segment display. All of these “new” features seem so needless. They already solved it, my 10 year old dishwasher is a great dishwasher and I will happily use it until it dies.
I realize that that’s maybe the problem when the line must go up, but I am pretty sick of companies putting most of their efforts towards solving problems that no one actually has instead of doing a simple thing really well.
I had a similar experience when I bought a pressure washer[1] that required an app. Some things just shouldn’t need one.
1. https://www.kaercher.com/au/home-garden/pressure-washers/sma...
They want you to fumble around with a phone app to adjust the machine, while you're presumably going to be at least somewhat wet from its use? WTF.
I just spent €1,250 for an oven (the only one I could find that was 45cm in height and could cook with steam).
It works very well but I was horrified when I saw the message saying that "It required an urgent security update" and that it would download it from the cloud.
I feel we went too far.
At what point will we grow tired of this and make open standards for control of these appliances like comma, where one can buy an established unit and modify it with a microcontroller. I know there are jokes about the quirks of open source hardware and software, but what if the alternative is almost as bad
I am so glad I saw this today! I am in the market for a new dishwasher and was about to buy a Bosch tomorrow on the strength of online reviews. Not anymore! And you bet I will be asking to read the user's manual before buying, to make sure the manufacturer isn't trying similar shenanigans.
Damn it Bosch. They usually make great tools and appliances and it looks like they're instead following the path of "subscribe for the basic features" scams.
I can't help but think my solution to this would be, to start hand washing the dishes, out of pure spite.
this discussion is getting big so i've built a summary, here's a few bullet points:
- Cloud-dependent features for essential appliance functions are undesirable.
- Modern appliances are becoming less durable and harder to repair compared to older models.
- There are valid concerns about privacy and data security with internet-connected home appliances.
- Consumer Reports and similar review sites are not always reliable and trustworthy.
- Simple, locally controlled appliances are preferable for core home appliance functionalities.
- Some smart features, like remote notifications and control, can be genuinely useful and convenient for users in certain situations.
- Smart features might offer specific advantages in shared living spaces or for optimizing energy consumption.
- Developing local-first software for appliances is perceived by some as complex and expensive compared to cloud-based solutions.
- The market will naturally adjust to consumer preferences regarding smart features over time.
- For some users, the effort of returning a product might outweigh the inconvenience of dealing with cloud-dependent features.
- Not all Bosch dishwashers require cloud connectivity, and some models are still considered high quality.
the summary can be found here: https://extraakt.com/extraakts/dishwasher-app-dependency
I think I had this dishwasher or one similar. The control board went out and the cost to replace it was more than a brand new dishwasher. I got a new cheaper dishwasher with fewer features/buttons/connectivity but it washes the dishes just as well. It also works.
I on the other hand do want connected appliances because this will allow automation to run them when e.g. there is a lot of electricity from the sun or wind, which is the future of electricity grids. A dishwasher is perfect for this because it basically runs daily, but most of the time you don't really need it to run at a very precise time.
As for expensive control boards for the old broken down machines, I found someone on eBay that repaired them and fixed my washing machine for 40. The control board is just a plastic box with cables running to it. Disconnect, take it out, mail it, and install it once you get it back. Fixed.
> First, it lets product designers get lazy.
Product designers get blamed for this kind of thing, but I can all but guarantee the product designer just worked on the how, they didn't decide that your dishwasher needed this feature. We rarely go rogue and create a whole new system that nobody asked for, then convince a bunch of product managers, VPs, and engineers that what they thought was a shitty idea is actually worth doing. Ideas like this get given to us, it's our job to execute on them, just like engineers implementing shitty features to the best of their ability. Product designers are usually the ones who complain about bad user experience, and get told it conflicts with business goals.
I’m at the point where shopping for any equipment from toaster to car/home, this is the primary thing I’m looking for first before purchasing is I need to know exactly how it works/operates. Everything is Wi-Fi enabled and smart but I need to be sold that I can operate it without connecting it. And if I can’t use the core features, the way dumb equipment would have worked, then it’s an immediate no go. I don’t care about most of the extra smart features I never had before on most things.
There are a few exceptions of course. Where remote access is a major value add. Home security systems, garage doors, deadbolts, etc fall into that cohort but that’s about it so far.
I want fun features, but my trust in these companies not to abuse that is -1000% (I minored in math). The company and Consumer Reports need to be blasted here. Yes, Consumer Reports. This is a lemon of a feature. They should be warning people that you need a cloud account/app to use the advertised features and dropping the score on these things because that is clearly not consumer friendly and will lead to features being unavailable when the company decides to turn them off. Oh, and they definitely are selling your info to someone so there is that.
I had this dishwasher in a rental property I was living in. The landlord fitted it a month or so after I moved in because the old dishwasher died.
I was very skeptical of a WiFi connected dishwasher.
Very quickly, I loved it.
It’s actually REALLY useful to be able to get a ping on my Apple watch that the dishwasher has finished.
Once upon a time I had a dishwasher where the door popped open when it was finished. That was good too.
But with the Bosch one I can do things like mute it (so it keeps washing but more quietly), or make custom programmes (spray harder on the bottom rack because I’ve been baking).
When I moved I bought my own. And then bought a matching smart washer dryer.
I was really really skeptical of internet connected appliances like this. I wouldn’t return to a dumb appliance.
> It’s actually REALLY useful to be able to get a ping on my Apple watch that the dishwasher has finished.
Most dishwashers will play a tune or something, and I can't see why would I want another digitalized distraction in my life instead. But TBH I can't imagine why I would want to wear another portable digital distraction source on my wrist, so maybe I'm just old fashioned.
> Once upon a time I had a dishwasher where the door popped open when it was finished.
This and everything else does not require network connectivity. Only notification does. Plus maybe remote start (already have that with a "delay" on the panel of mine), some UI for statistics. Gimmicks, if you ask me.
Connectivity in devices would make sense for certain conveniences in a perfect world, where companies can be trusted to behave decently. In practice they will brick (on purpose or accident/hack), ransom it in one way or the other, demand sourcing consumables from them after the fact, sell your privacy who knows where.
> wear another portable digital distraction source on my wrist
Oh but why? Everyone around me had an apple watch, I was the odd one out. And I said to my self "no more!!!"
I bought a second-hand apple watch, I deleted all the garbage from it, I got a comfortable bracelet for it. Then I disabled Wifi/Bluetooth/Data. I got an Android phone, so connectivity is limited/shit anyway, but if you kill background processing, alerts, all transmissions, then the battery lasts forever!!!! (36hours tops). Now I am a cool moron like every other moron around me!
The only sound I kept is the 'chimes' (so if I am 'available') I drop and do 10 push-ups. That's the ONLY useful thing about this watch.
Do people who wear an Apple Watch think they are cool? I think that is maybe in the eye of the beholder, but if it makes you feel like a cool idiot that’s nice, but I don’t know anyone who got an Apple watch because it’s cool. If you want to be cool you’d have a proper watch that every single other person doesn’t have…
For example I got mine because it has a sim in it which means I can leave my phone at home and walk my dogs and dictate voice memos or make calls while I am out.
But if it makes you feel cool that’s great!
> If you want to be cool you’d have a proper watch that every single other person doesn’t have
That would be me. I like my mechanical watches. But it doesn't make me any more or less cool than majority of people around me with Apple Watches on. Nobody really notices or gives a crap.
Indeed. The whole "being cool from the devices you wear/carry" is very much about how it makes you feel, rather than any perception other people might have.
If I see someone wearing a Rolex I'm more likely to think "that's reckless" than "that's cool". And if I see someone wearing an Apple Watch - or any other gadget - I think "oh, an Apple Watch" and nothing else, or, at most, I think "I wonder what that gadget is, it's not something I've seen before".
I was once at a conference and there was a (notoriously 'flash' but very boring) guy literally juggling his Punkt phone, clearly desperate for someone to ask him what it was, so that he could tell them how much of a hipster he was.
No-one asked. After about 20 minutes of juggling it he quietly put it back in his bag and took his iPhone out of his pocket.
> I can't see why would I want another digitalized distraction in my life instead
Preach. I love my smart devices, but they need to be quiet and dumb on outside, smart on inside. Cars where screens and beeps can be turned off, microwaves without beeps, washers without bops and gyms without forced music.
I think Japan kinda gets it right tho their rice cookers have famously pleasant jingle once it's done cooking.
None of these features require the cloud (which was the actual complaint in the video, not just the wifi). All of them could be run locally. Unless you think it's important to get that notification on your wrist when you aren't home, then I still don't see why these features are _cloud_ features. And even then, basic functionality like running a rinse cycle (again: the example from the video) shouldn't require an app, local or otherwise.
Yes, smart features can be a great convenience, but they shouldn't come at the expense of basic functionality, and they should only use the cloud when actually required. Very, very rarely are these smart features inherently a cloud feature. Exceptions being things like the stated in the video case of things like cameras/other home security devices.
That's what they WANT. They want you to be just satisfied enough that you accept the lack of local control, the cloud-first approach that allows them control over the device you paid for (or in this case, the landlord paid for, and essentially made the decision for you).
Cloud-first hardware is trash, and should be illegal to sell. Cloud-optional is one thing, but it should always be possible to perform 100% of the capabilities of a piece of hardware that you buy, without some bullshit cloud or subscription.
I consider it to be a very "rapey" mindset on the part of these companies. They will get the data they want, or you'll get a worthless pile of plastic and metal that barely counts as a functional device.
> It’s actually REALLY useful to be able to get a ping on my Apple watch that the dishwasher has finished.
It is a nice convenience, but it's trivially done with a power metering smart plug (using shelly here) that 100% locally shoves data to home assistant.
I am willing to bet that these features you started relying on will stop working within five years.
I'd also make that but, but only at ten years. It's unlikely but possible that the manufacturer might actually keep the backend service running for 5-10 years without it failing from incompetence or doing a deliberate rug pull. But, I'd surely bet its gone in ten years.
This highlights the need for open standards or some sort of government escrow cloud.
Or a requirement that the devices don't need the cloud. It's a dishwasher. Why does it need to be online, other than to provide data for advertising and training models? You can live without being notified your dishes are done.
I can't say I see much appeal for dishwasher being online for myself, but some people live their lives differently.
Perhaps this is a shared dishwasher in student house where time is tight (applies to clothes washer). Perhaps you want to fire it when power is cheap. Perhaps you want it to start automatically when you left house. Finally - adjusting settings is easier via phone UI or voice.
It kinda lame so many people on HN, predominantly a startup forum, have so little imagination.
I agree a better labelling should be out there tho. Cloud-free, cloud-enabled, cloud-native, etc.
All of these use cases can be achieved without requiring a manufacturer-run Internet-connected cloud service.
I don't think this is a lack of imagination. Personally, I would love network-connected appliances that could be controlled and automated over my LAN. What I (and others) object to is the unnecessary round trip through the Internet to the manufacturer's server which will inevitably become the weakest link.
If there's any imagination problem, it's on the manufacturer who can't imagine a "smart" appliance that doesn't involve inserting themselves, via the Internet, in between the user and the appliance and (often) charging a monthly service fee for this misfeature.
“Normal” people have no idea how to make that work though. They just want an app on their phone and not to have to buy something or maintain something or check something.
We could all run our own mail servers and there’s a good reason we don’t.
Yes they are achievable, but UX from normal users POV is horrible nor it's something that most people want. If it's on my smartphone then it should also work anywhere in the world. User doesn't really car how it's achieved, but it needs to be bulletproof.
They shouldn't go away in fifty years. The manufacturer should have zero say in what your device can do after you buy it, especially such pedestrian features as a rinse cycle, which has been a standard built-in feature of dishwashers for decades. There is nothing about a rinse cycle that demands a tether to the manufacturer.
I really don't understand why these trash devices are so popular. Is the average person really clueless enough that they'll buy into all this shit just so they can use an app to control their shit? And if so, why is the carrot of extreme convenience enough for people to literally give up control of their hardware to the manufacturer?
I hope this shit get hacked ten ways to Sunday. Fuck these rent-seeking bastards. Hacking is the one true equalizer. Unlicensed bread indeed.
Almost any washer and dryer on the market now has an audible signal (some adjustable for pitch and volume) when the cycle is done, but if you need your phone or watch to be pinged then I guess that's a selling point for you.
I always miss the ding (it's in the basement and very quiet), I'd probably do fine if it simply kept beeping every few minutes, I'd eventually hear one. But just one, nah, not nearly enough.
So, I put a magnetic sensor on the door and made a circuit that starts beeping when the door has been closed for an hour.
Simple as that. Door open, machine not in use. Door closed for less than an hour, probably still running. After that, beep until I open the door. No need for anything networked, no subscription, no terms of service, just more beeping.
(Same with the microwave. There's never a reason to leave cooked food in the microwave with the door closed for a long time, so it dings every few minutes until I open the door. My old microwave didn't do this, but my new one does. It's so simple, why can't they all have this?)
It can be quite the convenience to have a alert which follows your current notification preference settings (e.g. if you're sleeping you don't want to hear the dryer just finished but maybe your SO who is awake does) and can be a quite ding or vibration rather than a buzzer loud enough to be heard across the entire house.
That said I'd much rather it be a simple local HomeKit integration instead of cloud only custom app BS.
If it fails intermittently it’s very likely caused by cracked solder joints or dried out capacitors in the power supply. I bet this GE control board could be fixed cheaply - if it was old, it might even not use a switching mode power supply, but an old classical transformer + rectifier - those are trivial to fix and no special parts are needed.
The problem is though, there aren’t many electronic shops left which are able to do component level repair. Almost everybody replaces full modules, as it is much easier.
I've been thinking for a while about building a directory of sorts of product categories and products that are "dumb" (not connected to the cloud, or don't require it to function). I've done a lot of research for some and have a list myself.
If anyone thinks that'd be interesting and have thoughts/comments/suggestions or just would want to know about it, you can find my email in my profile and I'd love to hear from you!
(New) "dumb" cars are just impossible to find nowadays, unfortunately.
I am seriously surprised he chose this expensive model over the IKEA model costing less than $300, which the Consumer Report ranked not much worse than this expensive Bosch in their report, the latter of which he references in his video.
I wonder how long it will be before we need to start paying subscriptions to use our appliances or pay per use. Bosch is leaving money on the table by only allowing you to use DRMed detergent cartridges too.
Philip K Dick includes this as a side bit in Ubik - iirc there’s a great scene where the main character is broke and trying to get the front door to let him in to his apartment.
Mine is completely computer-free, with a mechanical timer, and has only required a minimum of maintenance over the years. There's actually a somewhat underground community rebuilding/restoring vintage white goods, which I suspect may become more popular as things like this keep happening.
Unlike the new stuff that's dependent on a cloud service with rapidly changing software which may get shut down or unusable in a few years, mine has been working with the same power and water for the greater than half a century since it was made.
I was quite surprised to discover that I couldn’t interact at all with my home battery without internet. I wanted to see how much power is left in it during a power cut but because in a power cut there’s no internet the app didn’t work. Interestingly the cell tower goes out after about two hours of power out and the landline goes after about 9 hours so I didn’t realise until quite far in that this would happen.
What does Bosch even get out of doing this? Why not add a simple 7 segment display (decades old tech) and make it possible to use the machines functions from the controls? It's not like they make money from active Bosch accounts or anything.
Just return that dumb dishwasher.
I literally went through this exact situation a couple months ago with a similar Bosch. I refused to get the new models that require the app to do simple things like half load or delay cycle that are physical buttons on my old one. I will actively avoid products like this.
I'd like to play devil's advocate for a minute and ask a question:
Does anyone know exactly what the Bosch service sends the dishwasher?
While I agree that connecting a dishwasher to the Internet should not be necessary, it does open the door to an interesting scenario if what gets sent to the dishwasher is not a command to run a mode but an actual program to control the dishwasher. In theory that would mean that Bosch could alter the programs that get sent to improve the dishwasher over time.
On a dishwasher with no connectivity the modes simply are what they are from the factory. But on a connected dishwasher if the Bosch engineers figure out that when in ECO mode using every third sprayer saves water while not altering the cleaning performance expected of that mode, they can update the payload and make the dishwasher you already have even more efficient. They could also in theory create a whole library of modes for specific use cases or scenarios (All glass, hard water, etc.)
Of course, this has potential drawbacks as well. They could change a mode and alter behavior you expect, and it could potentially be a hacker's playground, but if done well it could be a net positive.
The idea of a manufacturer updating my appliance to be "more efficient" is fine, but updates should only be applied at my discretion and we already have several mechanisms for this that don't involve an always-on internet connection.
If they really want firmware updates for their dishwasher, they should give it Bluetooth or a USB port enabled by a special button combination and call it a day.
You know very well this is not what online connectivity is for. No need to play Devil's advocate, he's been found guilty and sentenced long ago.
That feeling when someone put the story on Louis Rossman wiki today https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Bosch_Cloud_Dishwasher_I...
A rule of thumb I’m finding useful is, “If it has to connect to the internet to function properly, you do not really own it.”
Once bitten, twice shy. It's a shame, I used to like Bosch.
(sighs, thinks back to simpler times, remembers all the other shit that's going on at the moment, and wonders 'just how big a tarriff PDT will slap on the Huns')
Would Bosch try to go the same route as German automakers and institute a fee for ongoing use of advanced features?
Not sure if it will be Bosch first but I'm pretty sure someone will try to push subscriptions in this kind of devices... with only $3/month you can enable the fast cycle! And/or you'll get (for free this time) a screen that displays ads for detergent before you can start your dishwasher.
Any device which can ever connect to the internet should have a big red warning label like the ones on cigarettes. People would know to discount this warning if they're buying a device they know they want to connect to the internet.
The takeaway I've got from this thread is to never buy anything expensive or hard to uninstall unless you read the user manual first to suss out these sorts of landmines.
After reading this post and the comment section, I am glad that I made the decision to keep the 1993 Miele dishwasher that was installed in the house we bought last year. We basically renovated the kitchen around it.
To use the "Eco" mode you need a smartphone and a router.
This is beyond cynical.
2007 I won’t connect my phone to your cloud
2012 I won’t connect my tv to your cloud
2015 I won’t connect my car to your cloud
Not a huge fan of internet-of-shit but we have a similar Bosch dishwasher and it’s totally operable without wifi. I don’t think there is anything advertised to us that can’t be done by just pushing the buttons.
The smart stuff seems acceptably done: I can start cycles on my phone, it can be configured with the off-peak times for our power supply and automatically delay the overnight wash until then, I get a push notification on my Apple Watch to tell me to open the door to help drying, there are more program cycles you can download (which is the complaint here - should be more cycles on the machine).
And there is this useless feature where you can tell it you’ve bought, say, 90 dishwasher tablets and it will count down the tablets each wash and warn you when you need to buy more.
I say useless because you literally see how many tablets you have left when you fish them out of the box but still it felt like they tried to add some electronic smarts that made sense?
So yeah TL;DR works fine without wifi, with wifi you get some practical but otherwise ignorable functionality.
I'm really happy with my Bosch washing machine's WiFi. Getting a notification to the phone when the wash cycle is complete is something I wouldn't give up now, since I don't hear the beeping to upstairs. I also wish I'd get notifications from the dish washer, but it's an old model that still works and it's hard to justify replacing it yet.
I also have no clue what all the physical buttons on the washing machine's control panel do, but it's easy to configure the wash program using the phone app whenever something special is needed. I wish I had the same kind of remote control for the dish washer, since its buttons are also pretty much undecipherable.
The actual Home Connect Android app is not great though. Could be simplified and cleaned up of unnecessary cruft.
I bought an LG a few years ago and connected it to WiFi. I have no idea what I need to program for special wash cycles, but it’s nice getting a notification on my watch when a load is done or having issues.
Do VLANs really provide total isolation? Are there any attacks that still work for breaking out of a VLAN? Just like there is always a way to break out of a sandbox?
It depends on how the VLAN tagging is applied.
If the rule is that everything from a 2nd SSID has the VLAN applied, that's pretty secure.
If the rule is that things with a particular MAC address have the VLAN applied, that depends on the device not spoofing another MAC address.
And if your rule is that already tagged traffic is left as-is, then a device can tag its own traffic with another VLAN.
If it takes you an hour and a half to wash a few dishes, you probably have a LOT more issues than this article describes....
Data sniffers always looking for some dirty washing.
Ok with some stats send in quality. But these days the more complex they get, they sound like printer Error blah blah. :)
I get everybody wants to lock you in, but how do we incentivize manufacturers to add local support? Bosch is already high-end so it's not price.
vote for better regulations. Capitalism doesnt care about your actual needs. They just raise the costs to offset the loss of "poor" consumers.
Kind of related. I gave my dad my old iPhone years ago, and when he bought a new car, the car’s app was unsupported on his phone’s version of iOS. He ended up having to get a new phone as well as a new car. (It’s nice to start heating up the car before leaving the office.)
I can imagine the same happening with connected appliances. You have to get a new phone to talk to your old dishwasher because the vendor updated the app to only work on the newest phones.
So what's the "Speed Queen" equivalent for dishwashers and other home appliances?
We are outraged for ten minutes, and then move on, like the red sock in the white wash. The modern western consumer getting exactly what we deserve. MBA spin, rinse, repeat, draining us all, whilst the stain of these complex holding companies, launder their tax free profits.
With wage deflation, free time erosion, and political uncertainty, nobody has the time, energy or money to fight this. It is no wonder that we take the easy option, and so the cycle continues.
I do my best to pushback (this month was deleting firefox, last year was deleting youtube), but disengagement is just a number that nobody sees. So another 1000 people wont buy this brand, or use that service, or will boycott such and such. No one notices.
But I found some small hope. I recently switched jobs, and I have been lucky enough to talk to many people that do care enough to try to make a difference. I know there are others here on HN as well, some of us clinging on to one of the last websites worth visiting.
So if you have ever taken the more difficult option, I just want to say thank-you for your sacrifice, because even if the corps dont notice, you are doing the right thing. Karma.
Time to give tech a 'soiled wash' and start reviewing tech with a 'Clean Tech' moniker for companies willing to sell repairable tech, without the enshitifcation of ads, cloud, subscriptions, drm, mandatory accounts etc etc
Today's challenge, find Jeff a 'Clean Tech' washer so that we can have some interesting followup articles where he battles with the returns department because the machine has been listening in to his grumbles, and the water detection sticker has turned blue.
Jeff didn't mention whether Consumer Reports discussed this problem. If not, they also deserve blame.
Let's be clear. The industry plan for surveillance state is completely nuts. Expect toilets with AI analytical options over your feces and automatic report to your AI doctor. Transactional charges automatically included in your social scoring profile and carbon tax.
> We don't have 1.5 hours every night to spend hand-washing dishes (not to mention the water bill!).
Where is that bizarre conception that washing dishes by hands ends up wasting more water? If anything it's the other way around.
Nope. A modern dishwasher uses 2-3 gallons per load. If your dishwasher has Eco modes or a half-cycle mode, you can use even less. A typical kitchen faucet will deliver 2 gallons per minute. If you run your faucet for longer than that, and most people absolutely will, you are wasting water by hand washing.
These arguments justifying dishwashers are silly. How expensive is your water that this small saving is going to offset the cost of electricity and the appliance itself? You use a dishwasher because you're lazy, not because of efficiency or cost benefits. It's OK to just say. I hate washing dishes too.
1.5 hours a day and a high water bill is a ridiculous exaggeration, though. Like with anything, the more you do it the better you get at it. I wash dishes currently because I don't have a dishwasher. It takes 10-20 minutes tops, and my water bill is lower than my internet bill (and much lower than internet + various media subscription services that I don't need).
It’s not just laziness or cost. Dishwashers use less water than manual washing. Clean water is a scarce resource.
> you are wasting water by hand washing.
that depends entirely how you hand-wash your dishes. There is not a single way to do it.
> A modern dishwasher uses 2-3 gallons per load
Maybe, but then you have to factor that the quality of the rinsing has nothing to do with hand-washing. I'd prefer my plates without traces of detergents.
My personal take: no, I won't connect my dishwasher - or any other appliance - to your stupid cloud, nor will I use your dog-shit garbage app. I will, however, consider buying your "Internet of Shit"-enabled appliance, if I know there's a working integration for Home Assistant.
"Smart" features are nice when done well. Like e.g. through Home Assistant. Companies could make them that good, even better, but they all universally see IoT as a trick for plausibly-deniable planned obsolescence and to get people used to subscription model for home appliances. As a result, the apps are usually pile of garbage, slapped together on the cheap by some random outsourcing company.
If it takes you an "hour and a half" to wash a few dishes, I'd say you have bigger issues than what you're whining about here...
Some things - I don't see value (yet).
But others like coffee machine, lights, solar, AC, ventilation, robot vacuum, car charger, hot water heater, speakers are so obviously better when connected.
I disagree with most of these (giving as much reason as you).
The only device that I really want connected is my lawn sprinkler system so that it can check the weather before using a lot of potable water
Do you really mean "cloud connected"? Having an app for a coffee machine sounds good. Having to connect my coffee machine to my wifi, so it can stream my coffee drinking habits to shady retailers, and upsell me subscription to paid features (sorry, you didn't pay $2 this month to unlock late macchiato, would you like Americano instead?). After you create an account, of course.
Even worse if you literally can't use your coffee machine without connecting it to the cloud.
I feel similarly about the rest of the things you listed. But I don't mind having the option, as long as it's completely optional (because I don't want to use it). But because of how capitalism works, it is very hard for the MBAs in management to resist the urge to cloud-wall features.
Maybe worth to consider that with the AI craze going on and our lovely gang of anarchocapitalists at the helm, there is now not just the technical ability, but also economic motivation and soon maybe legal impunity for manufacturers to build hidden microphones into the devices, record everything you say and upload it for AI training.
Dishwashers and washing machine have really enshitified at warp speed.
Parents used to have them for decades plus. The last dishwasher my landlord put in made it about 6 month. Build quality feels like soda can alu
Basically disposable now
For fear of becoming a one line repeater:
It's kind of amazing that capitalism can go so far as to make customers want to opt out and build their fucking own...
capitalism is like fiefdoms with more steps. Since the US and some other countries just refuse to regulate monopolies, the power they wield to enforce rediculous hoops is unlimited.
I have a slightly different perspective, though in principle I agree with this sentiment.
I'm totally blind. Last year I bought an Instant Pot (multi-function pressure cooker) because it's well past time I start cooking for myself. There are numerous models available on Amazon, and I had no idea which ones would have tactile controls (I think this was before Amazon introduced their LLM thing, and I'm unsure if it would've helped in any case, or just hallucinated and caused me to buy something I couldn't use). Could've waited until I had a sighted person around or available online to look at pictures, but that's beside the point.
So I ended up spending an extra $50 for the "Pro Plus" model, which is WiFi-enabled. Apparently a previous model connected to phones directly via bluetooth (that model is no longer supported) and that's what I was hoping/expecting would be the case here as well. Unfortunately it only uses bluetooth for the initial setup. So, after creating yet another account with my real email address, registering the device, and waiting several minutes for who knows what (firmware download?) it's connected to the internet and seems to be controlled indirectly by the phone app through their API. So yeah, that company probably logs when, where, how, and maybe even what I cook, for how long, because why the hell not?
My point, though, is that for the moment, at least I can use this device. I'm well aware that this may not be the case long-term; the app has already had one update that made accessibility much worse, the company could stop supporting this model as well, or the internet could go down. The app and the device occasionally get out of sync, resulting in quite a bit of wasted time. But if I were using buttons on the device itself, the best I could hope for would be to memorize menus and the temperature dial and whatnot. In practice, that would probably be less tedious than having to pause while cooking, clean my hands and use my phone, but for now, at least theoretically, I can use all the features of the device via the app. Barring that, the logical solution would be to just connect directly via bluetooth, as was done previously, but then I wouldn't need to create an account, and we can't have that. Maybe there are/were better options on the market, but product listings seem to just say things like "WiFi-enabled", "App-Controled", or "IoT" without defining exactly what that means, and "customer support" will either be a chatbot that tells me what I want to hear and then claims to contact a human who will never get back to me, or a human following a script who doesn't understand my requirements even after I state them clearly, and probably doesn't even know what they're actually selling. Wonderful world we live in. Incidentally, I do actually need to get myself a dishwasher one of these days, and it's almost certainly going to be the same deal.
In terms of "what should be done?", and I the only one who thought of the Silicon Valley episode where they immortalized Jing Yang on a "smart" fridge?
I have this exact dishwasher. To connect the app to it you have to go through a cloud account, but to its credit, you can turn the cloud connection off afterward and the app will then only talk to it through local wifi.
The dishwasher answers on SSH port 22. I suspect that the app's direct connection uses this and exchanges credentials via the initial cloud setup (so no cloud, no app connection either way).
I've found one useful feature not mentioned in the manual at all, that depend on the app: Popping the door open at the start of the drying cycle ("Efficient Dry" or something like that) vs. the end of it ("Auto Air"). Since changing this setting, plastic stuff is noticeably drier after letting it run into the night and then sitting open for the rest of the night. Stuff with higher thermal inertia (metal, porcelain, glass) is always dry except for the inevitable puddles at the top of upside-down mugs.
Actually I think you also need the app to run only the extra hot final rinse (for better drying) whereas "Sanitize" on the machine's UI runs the whole wash hotter.
The first thing it did after connecting it to the app/cloud was install a 70MB (!) software update. On a dishwasher.
Anyway I was not going to connect it to the cloud. But it flaked alarmingly. It would just sit there, blinking its red light, unresponsive to anything but power off, and there was no way to ask it what was wrong. Since the software update it has not done this, knock on wood.
The manual, btw, also doesn't mention this: If you do reset it via 4 second power button press, it does not go catatonic forever. It just sits there for 30+ seconds with all lights on and unresponsive. But then it does finish the reset. I'd previously run out of patience and unplugged it by then.
If you do RTFM you'll find that most of the features, e.g. how much rinse aid to dispense, are available through the machine's UI through deeply unintuitive keystroke sequences. But not all of them (like the mentioned delayed start).
I don't use the machine all that much, so a 20+ year lifetime is possible. Will the app and cloud still function then? I'd like to think yes - German companies are very customer service oriented. But we'll see. Whether the machine lasts that long and whether the app/cloud lasts that long. Keep in mind if you need the cloud to connect the app, you may have to do that every time you change phones.
One "feature" that this one has... with a 3:15h wash time (on the "auto" setting) it keeps things wet for so long that, say, rice starch comes off perfectly. On the previous, old, dishwasher it just got baked on really well by the hot dry cycle. Of course that dishwasher only took an hour, so you could run mutliple loads at the end of a big dinner evening. Win some, lose some.
Yes, I have the same one and I'm surprised the switch to disable it's Internet connectivity was missed and instead everyone's raging about IOT. The app is able to establish a local connection to the dishwasher and it's one of the few that can do this.
I'm very happy with the app. If you didn't already fetch electricity prices, it can display them in the app and automatically delay washing until it's cheapest. The dishwasher can also be extended by downloading additional wash programs.
It seems to be well thought out. LGs app in comparison is absolute pants and has no option for local connectivity.
I am genuinely worried that when I am old there won't be anything that I could buy that would not be an enshittified device... until them I am going to keep hoarding what I can that would outlast my life.
I have an LG washing machine whose old app is no longer around, and the new app doesn't work with my model.
The enshittification continues...
> What should be done?
You should research your appliances better before purchasing them.
Also I guess they should be less user-hostile, good luck with that.
It's the tech bro mentality and low interest rates that got us here. It's not enough for a company to just make something good on an open standard. No, they have to go with the enshitification/juicero model and blitzscale the whole market. Appliances should work with zigbee or similar but instead we get a dozen janky apps or 'works with Alexa'.
This is very stereotypical Hacker News blog post.
The only thing is, you know you can, like, buy a dishwasher that doesn't connect to Wifi?
At this point some things are better with bluetooth/wifi. The laundry machine in my building connects via Bluetooth to an app and I can pay for my laundry using it. Do you realize how much better that is than having to go to the bank every few weeks (during work because of course the bank hours are 10-4 these days), get a bunch of quarters, and use them to wash my clothing?
I guess the point is there's more nuance to the HN kneejerk reaction to "Internet of things bad" - some things are easier, some things are dumb marketing gimmicks that quickly die off. Ultimately the market sorts itself out. If people don't want to use an app for their dishwasher, manufacturers will stop making them. Remember 3D TVs?
It's a proven recipe that will boost your blog's rankings.
1. Buy dishwasher that requires wifi 2. Complain loudly that said dishwasher requires wifi 3. Post on HN
>The laundry machine in my building connects via Bluetooth to an app and I can pay for my laundry using it.
Excuse my ignorance but do you... pay to do laundry in your own home? I must be misunderstanding something because it sounds like some dystopian late stage capitalism thing. If I actually understood you correctly, can't you get a dishwasher that doesn't require paying?
Fucking hell. Yeah, this 100%.
I'll go even further:
STOP PUTTING FIRMWARE IN THINGS THAT DON'T NEED FIRMWARE.
Once the manufacturer decides to add remote controls, its not clear to me a better solution currently exists.
AFAIK Android gives you some freedom wrt notifications, but Apple demands all notifications go through a service.
This is all before we talk about the support nightmare of average people not understanding why they can't connect to their dishwasher when away from home, or what the proper security model should be.
While it's utterly true these features will simply get abandoned by the manufacturer, people seem to discount how hard (read: expensive) it is to develop local-first software, especially the one you want to just work with a mobile app that might or might not be on the same local network or subnet (try explaining that bit to your regular Bosch customer).
Since we are, ultimately, such a minority, I am sure that not even returning the product would make the manufacturer understand that this is — really — unacceptable. The only way we can get this "fixed" is by mandating open APIs for local use by regulators, when we'll see the proliferation of custom apps.
Why make it work with a mobile app at all? How is that even a convenience? This is an appliance you need to be physically present at to load and unload.
No disagreement there, but once you are set on a mobile app, you are going to push for it to be used.
It all probably starts benign: let's push some notifications to customer's phones (already requires a server — ahem, a cloud — and a mobile app).
Then smart product managers realize that the app is not used by anyone, and they start thinking about "value add" with the app, and quickly, you are looking at removing things from the physical unit and putting them only in software.
A PM next: look, this release has increased usage of the app 10x!
Instead of them just doing the right thing and nixing the app — but who'd advocate for cutting their own job?
I could see a remote notification that it finished being useful. That said, the manufacturers would never go for this, but a dry contact for a GPO that is asserted on the machine finishing is likely all a number of people here would ever need/want.
How complicated of software does one need in a dishwasher? Feels like a solution looking for a problem
How do I use Home Assistant to run my dish washer, charge my electric car, start my washing machine, etc based on the capacity of my solar array's battery and the fluctuation of electricity prices day to day to pay the least amount of money without software connectivity? All of this is possible today with the right hardware.
It does NOT need cloud connectivity and all of these devices should be able to communicate locally to a matter or zigbee hub or over Wi-Fi without Internet directly to my server. That is the actual problem. We should not let corporate greed stifle innovation by saying new features are pointless because a company then can try to exploit it for further profit.
I agree that's the goal we as a community should steer to.
But on how we do that, my opinion seems to differ.
I postulate that it's hard (expensive) to do what you suggest: finding people to build that for every customer, while not increasing support costs is tricky today.
Just ensuring your personal computing device (a phone, laptop or server running home assistant) can see and talk to your device is a hard problem (which is why the go to solution is poke a hole in your router fw by pushing data to a server, and have mobile app only talk to the cloud).
Can we, as a software development community, come up with an approach that makes this easy to do for local first but remote enabled?
The "software development community" isn't going to do shit, quite frankly, as long as bean counters rule the world. The businesses will keep hardening their equipment (or paying someone to do it poorly), and they'll threaten to sue anyone who attempts to free the hardware.
Some things that are already wildly out of control cannot be fixed from within. We can only hope that regulation and government influence could stop the waterfall. Or, a good old fashioned tea party (if that would even have the slightest effect nowadays).
Obviously they aren't, as long as they are not even willing to acknowledge that developing local-first while also supporting mobile app use outside the homes _is_ more expensive. And obviously, "bean counters" are not going to invest in doing the more expensive thing when the cheaper one "works" (we all disagree with that, but these products continue selling in the market).
So I think it's either increased government regulation, or IT crowd working to simplify development of local-first/mobile-supported applications for any type of a connected device and client. I don't really think this will come from a community, but a push to standardize on a couple of protocols, API formats, how apps can talk to the same API locally and over the internet and such — those are things that could really be done once (or at most a couple dozen times, for everyone's favourite framework and language :)), and then there won't be an "expensive" excuse for companies.
Or, rules can mandate that, when it will become cheaper because companies will join together to bring the price down (like they did with Matter).
Now that I could totally get behind. Built in Matter/Zigbee/Z-Wave radio would be amazing! Might actually make it halfway 'smart'.
Or phrased another way, if local first software is so difficult why are we doing it at all when these devices worked BEFORE they had software.
The worst washing machine I've ever had is my current one, and it isn't even a "smart" appliance. It has just enough software to be worse than my one with dials for everything.
They have had software for decades. They were run by microcontrollers. The only difference is that it was an embedded system with no network capabilities.
And they switched from tactile controls to touch-sensitive buttons.
That's the oppression of the "sleek": touch-sensitive buttons are worse in every way except that they allow for "flatter" design.
At least we are seeing actual, tactile buttons start their return in cars!
people seem to discount how hard (read: expensive) it is to develop local-first software
How hard and how expensive is it? It used to just be called "software" for four decades and literally everything was made this way up until a few years ago so I think the evidence is against you on this one.
It was made for different use cases.
Nobody had a personal computing device in their pocket 90% of their awake time.
Now the goal for product department is to make their newly "smart" devices accessible to said computing devices.
The simplest solution that (almost) always works on home networks is to initiate an outgoing connection to an external server (the "cloud"), push notifications and poll for commands; after, have the mobile app only talk to the server.
If you do anything else, you are at the very least setting yourself up for support nightmare: "I am at home and I can't access my washer through the app" (are you on the same network? maybe your phone has wifi turned off?)
For usecases of the sort, this is one general solution that — from the perspective of a PM — always works.
By simply discounting reality that it's more expensive to implement both locally accessible smart devices, yet keep remote capability, and discounting that support costs are going to balloon too, we are not driving to a positive outcome for all of ourselves either.
I think we should focus on getting the cost down, by building better tooling and protocols and patterns that make it easy for a mobile app (or any client) to discover and talk to any smart device, making it simple for a customer to decide if they want remote capability or not.