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Comment by boring_twenties | Hacker News Reader

Honestly not surprising. I bought a washing machine from LG a year or two ago. At first, I didn't bother even looking into its "connected" features, but recently I came into a spare iPhone that was just gathering dust, so I figured why not give it a shot, maybe there's something useful here.

Holy hell.

The app itself refuses to even attempt to connect to any device, unless granted Location Services permission. WTF? I mean, I expected spyware, I guess I just didn't expect them to be so god damn brazen about it.

After that, it turns out the appliance itself refuses to stay connected to the wifi network unless it can phone home. Needless to say, it ignores both forms of proxy configuration (WPAD and DHCP option) as well. Give it direct Internet, or give it death.

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If an app needs to connect to a Wi-Fi AP on the appliance, you have to allow location since having access to the Wi-Fi scan of networks that are in range can allow for some coarse geolocation, thanks to open source SSID databases [1]. I wish Android and iOS would add functionality that allowed an app to connect to a known SSID without access to the scan because the permission requirement is rightly off-putting.

[1] https://wigle.net/map?maplat=37.76559999999937&maplon=-122.4...

I could be wrong but I don't think this is the case?

Even after enabling the Location Services access, I still had to manually connect to the appliance's AP through the iOS Settings app.

> I wish Android and iOS would add functionality that allowed an app to connect to a known SSID without access to the scan

Would that really help that much? If you know the user's approximate area, e.g. by IP address, and their SSID is unique in that area, than if the app says to the OS "please connect to this SSID if it's available" and the connection happens, the app now has your location.

I suppose that's a case for making location access more granular, not leaving things the way they are. But I bet people doing UIs for Google and Apple won't do that because the average user doesn't understand the possible location implications of giving away your SSID.

May I ask what features your washing machine needs internet access for? I maybe be a bit backward, but it's a washing machine, it washes clothes, I can't see how that would ever require accessing the internet.

It can ping you when it's done, useful if you cant hear it or forget.

Privacy is useful as well. Death by a thousand conveniences? Gawd only knows what the app is doing while you're not doing laundry. Surveillance Capitalism is real.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...

GDPR and CCPA exist, don't be that pessimistic.

"Death by a thousand conveniences" is inspired.

And another OTM fan.

A count down timer on your phone's clock app can achieve the same effect, without the washer needing to be internet connected.

Granted, you do have to remember to start the countdown timer.

I have a combined washer/dryer that has a handy one-touch “wash and dry the stuff in the drum” setting, which is enabled in part by moisture detection in the drying phase. I let it know what kind of fabric it’s dealing with (cotton or synthetics) and it does the rest.

Because of this, the total cycle time can be as little as 40 minutes or as long as 2 hours and I have no real control over it. I would love if it could ping my phone since I wear headphones a lot and often miss the chime.

At this point I think the solution is to have a nearby Raspberry Pi or similar detect the chime with a microphone, then send an old-fashioned email. LOL

edit: Actually, can anyone suggest software to do this with? I already have a Pi-alike in the same room.

I've semi-seriously considered getting one of those flashing process lights that you see on industrial equipment and hooking it up to a pi that monitors the power draw through the outlet and lights up whenever it goes high->low.

Oh you can get a zwave or similar power switch that can monitor power usage that does that for you, no custom rpi required. Then you make an automation that sends a push once power is down after an initial increase minimum.

There are also high power zwave switches that should work with driers too.

Or shit can respect our privacy

Don't know about the audio detection software... you might also think about sampling your home power usage and detecting the characteristic usage pattern of your washing machine..?

The time is not always exact. It can changed based on size of load, or soil level, or how long it takes it to balance the load to spin it.

That's exactly my question. I just wanted it connected to the phone, which is on the same local network. Not to the internet.

It can email you?

https://twitter.com/dcseifert/status/1367478685306138629

Seems to be violating one of the Rules of Robotics.

It needs extermination.

sounds like my dishwasher

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