Bob Cassette Rewinder: Hacking Detergent DRM
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It turns out the water intake valve solenoid was jammed or gummed up somehow, as applying 120V to it directly had no effect. I went to find an OE replacement online only to find that they are $580, sold by only 2 places, and sold out. You need to be a certified Miele technician to buy them.
Given I knew the specifications from the model number and the printing on the solenoid itself wrt voltage and flow rate, I bought the cheapest replacement I could find on Amazon, spliced the wires into the existing harness and boom, it worked perfectly.
One thing I didn’t understand was why there were so many different inlet valves that all did the same thing. There were 120V AC and 12V DC versions but other than that the only difference was the water connector/dongle/bracket. It seemed absurd there would be so many but the reality is that actual solenoid is super generic and should only cost $20 and should be made to fit them all. Of course nobody really repairs things these days but I think this is the reason why. Even when the part could easily be standardized and replaced/repaired like a light bulb, companies want you to buy a whole new one.
What is happening here is different - it's a question of "how do we make it as cheap as possible and last as long as the warranty".
They sound the same but they really aren't. No one is designing these devices to break deliberately. But companies absolutely are swapping metal cogs for plastic ones because a plastic cog won't break during the warranty period and that's what matters.
Real planned obscolescence is making software that requires online authentication and then switching off the auth servers 3 years in so that the customers have to buy a new version. That's a deliberate action.
It can be both. I was in a hardware store looking at painter ladders and noticed many of them had the two sturdy metal ladders kept together by a piece of plastic. Pretty much everyone would think they were extremely durable, while actually the weak link would soon wear to make the entire product useless. Was it incompetence or planned obsolescence? I have no idea, still I wonder why I spotted the problem in 5 seconds straight although I am no engineer.
Those do not like heat, and if you model the heat correctly, you fit the bell curve of expiration exactly after the 2-3 years after the warranty expires.
If you improve the cooling of the area, most devices lifetime can be doubled. I always wondered why no repair shop takes advantage of this, by offering a doubled warranty, for defusing planned obsolescence ahead of time.
An easier thing to do is remove the heat better. This can be done by making sure that the intake air first cools the capacitors (outside air->caps->transistors). Since most power supplies these days are shoved into a plastic box with no venting, it can be easy to add a few vent holes and a small fan. If you do this, make sure that all of the capacitors are discharged before handling as not all power supplies have bleeder resistors to make sure the capacitors self-discharge in a reasonable time period.
So yes, strictly speaking they are not the same and they can lead to different outcomes, but I am not sure how much of a difference it makes in terms of real world results. Sure, it depends on the cost structure of the product and a few other factors, but in the end many products will just break right after the warranty period.
That gear isn't plastic because it's cheaper than a metal gear, it is a sacrificial part.
Suppose you get some coffee beans with a rock in them. The burrs seize up because they can't grind the rock, and you don't notice it in time to cut the power.
Imagine that every part in the power chain is as sturdy as the motor and the burrs. The motor may burn out, or else it manages to force the burrs to turn, ruining them.
Now you have to replace either the expensive motor or the expensive burrs.
Instead, the plastic gear fails, saving the motor and burrs. This gear is cheap and easy to replace. (Baratza may send you one for free, even if the machine is out of warranty. Their customer service is second to none.)
So there are some cases where a breakable plastic part can avoid damaging or ruining the more expensive parts.
Of course one could imagine other ways of solving the "grinding a rock" problem. Maybe some kind of sensor to turn off the motor if it seizes up? But that would increase the cost of the grinder, and who knows if it may have other failure modes. Since this is such a rare situation, the sacrificial plastic gear is a simple and effective solution.
People make replacement out of brass. I shudder.
A better solution than a replaceable gear.
1. They don't want consumers, or third party repairs, seeing Factory Repair Information. (They pick, and choose which appliance repair shops get the information, and it's tied to sales. Try finding a independant repair shop these days?)
2. They usually don't sell parts out side of warranty. When they do, they are marked up very high. (If enough models were sold, the part might have a genetic equivelant.)
3. It seems like they make repair just difficult enough, so people just buy new again? I have a family member who admits Bosh appliances are overpriced, and have short lives. She still buys the brand? I believe Bosh psychologists know why?
4. Right now I have two Bosh appliances on life support. I fool around with electronic repairs so I have them kinda working. If you get an E13 error on a Bush Washer, it's usually the drain pump. In order to open the door, you need to shopvac the water from the drain hose.
5. I've noticed the weak spot on Bosh appliances is the computer, and I get it. It's not the best enviornment for electronics. Make the computer boards similar to vechicle boards. It's pretty rare for a vechicle's computer to fail. Meaning they are built for a nasty environment.
On the other hand I have a cordless Bosch drill/driver set I bought refurb, they've held up to years of neglect and (not pro) use. Maybe give them a try next time?
Edit: jokes aside, that's good information. Fwiw I had to babysit a little tube for an hour+ to drain a Samsung washer to get at the drain filter. I wish I could have used a shop vac to speed that up.
They are choosing to ask this question.
But it's possible to ask other questions.
Let's take the example of the Gigabyte "Ultra Durable" mothers.
It's a motherboard series with some improved parts with a focus on reliability. And they are relatively cheap parts. And supposedly the really increase the reliability of this motherboard.
And they've built an affordable brand around it.
And people like it.
Except if you design something to break right after the warranty (or as close to it as you can get using the cheapest materials possible), that is what you are doing.
So your only reference point is seeing that all the older appliances seem to be built to last. You'd need to do research on all the options that haven't lasted to today to find out if modern stuff really does break faster, and that's much harder to do.
ps. Just remembered, that Miele also had a diagnostic/debug mode to tell you what system was faulting. Try that with your shitty builder's grade Whirlpool.
The fact that the GP was able to find and substitute an equivalent part for cheaper means that the $580 had to be including the price of Something Else, and the fact that it was for sale in two different places means it wasn't just Miele.
I then cleaned it with the recommended cleaning chemical and cleaning cycle.
It seems as good as new, to me.
I clean the filter about every other month and that’s largely it. They sell a dishwasher cleaner that you run though a cycle. I’ve bought one but haven’t seen the need to use it yet. Stainless interior looks brand new to me at around 7 years of use.
It’s not for the steel interior really.
When it was leaving home its insides were spotless and odorless. It was still cleaning as good as its first day. Home appliances have long lives with proper yet minimal maintenance.
BSH group's appliances are pretty solid. Miele as various people written here is generally fussy, and they don't live longer than a properly cared Bosch or Siemens, yet their tolerances are lower.
Dad sold these things when I was little. Never sold Miele because he didn't wanted to sell headache to people.
i have a whirlpool washer/dryer i bought in 2006 for our large famliy (2 adults and 3 kids). we have worked that thing to the bone every weekend doing massive loads (everyone overloads it so they dont need to do two runs).
The dishwashers on the other hand (whirlpool, bosch, etc) only last ~5 years before they start going bad (poor quality washing, not draining properly, door not closing, electronic panel not working, etc)
Strange, maybe. Currently I know of two Bosch, one Siemens and one Samsung machine in service. All of them are being used for more than five years and the oldest one only had a water-pump change since the water in the area was extremely hard & it was only used only some parts of the year.
Currently all are working without any problems.
Maytag, too. I had no problem finding Maytag parts recently.
There were garbage appliances 20 years ago, too... you just don't see them around anymore because they already broke down long ago.
No longer exists - sold to the Chinese: https://news.yahoo.com/ge-sells-appliance-business-chinas-qi...
I have a few LG appliances and while just a few years back finding parts for them would have been a challenge, it no longer is - there are several places online that specialize in them and I find it no harder to find parts for them as I do my few remaining GE appliances (that I have relatively few complaints about - heck my dishwasher is 15 years old at this point).
Love my LG front load washer/dryer though. Doesn't shake the house down on the spin cycle like the Duet HT it replaced and does the best job of rinsing out of any washer I have ever used - even the 1970's top loaders that used 20+ gallons per wash/rinse cycle that I grew up with :p
My excesivly expensive and needlessly complex appliance is better then your cheaper and more common model becaues of a bunch of features no one cares about?
Can anyone access the Miele diagnostic board, or does it need some special Miele only tech to buy and use? Does the average consumer care that it has this function, espeiclaly when it is also so much more expensive to repair?
You can get a new base-model dishwasher for what the OP priced the replacement part at??
calling another brand "shitty" is just bad, no one said your clearly superior miele is shit, but you did to another brand for no reason?
I view dishwashers as disposable, after 4-5 years i throw them out and get a new one....
Yes, it codes on the washer's display. There's a few secret key presses to show errors and reset things if you can use a search engine, eg https://removeandreplace.com/2016/06/30/miele-dishwasher-err...
They also have diagnostic modes and test cycles. Though not that easy to use. Perhaps the miele is more user friendly when it comes to repairs.
It turned out that despite my google-fu there isn’t a published repair manual to be found, Philips does not offer replacement parts anywhere oh and actually it’s a rebranded machine from Saeco...
So I just started taking it apart as the warranty had expired anyway. Took a bit of doing but ultimately found out that the motor for the bean grinder was broken.
With some luck by typing in some numbers printed on it I managed to find a place that sells them. With that it was a fairly easy fix that cost me 40 euros and an hour or three instead of 300+ for a new machine.
Also there is sweet satisfaction form having fixed a thing
For the most part, googling part #s and looking at pictures will get you pretty far. These machines share a lot of parts with other Saeco/Gaggia/Philips models.
And if you do a video/write-up online you can share that feeling with others as well https://i.imgur.com/ZXAkTWC.png
The whole "Warranty void if sticker removed" on a sticker over a screw or "Warranty void if panel removed" ... all of those things are scare tactics, and, in fact, not even legal in many places.
Indeed a lot of the mechanical parts like valves, pumps, etc. will be available online from various places, and I bet you'd be able to find the same thing on AliExpress cheaper than Amazon.
As for why there are so many variations, it could be a form of vendor lock-in (like laptop AC adapters, where the number of different output voltages is far greater than the tolerance itself), or different companies just chose different OEMs.
I'm recently annoyed by my Honda lawn mower which requires a complete transmission replacement ($220) due to a worn out key slot in the drive shaft. Annoying since the transmission itself is well built, but you can't buy just the drive shaft:
https://axleaddict.com/misc/Honda-Harmony-215-Transmission-P...
(I have an HRX217 but the transmission design is similar.)
I've seen the inside of modern washing machines and the difference between the two is stark.
Both machines are actually extremely simple, but the Maytag is incredibly overengineered. Every last component is quality.
Modern machines do everything in the PCB but every component had maximum cost squeezed out of it.
What I'll probably do is replace the easily replaceable parts (key, spring, clamps, washers, gear), give it a good lubrication, and sell it (disclosing the worn part) and replace it with a battery-powered mower. I'm tired of dealing with gas machines. I'm under no illusion that a battery-powered mower will be as durable, but I'm just done with the noise and pollution of gas.
My electric cuts 19" and the push mower is about the same, maybe a little wider. Cheap battery mowers are 16", maybe even 14". 22" ones are available for $450 on up. I'd consider buying one of those if the batteries would last for 5 years. My experience so far with cordless tools is not positive.
I think the permutations make it hard.
Works perfectly.
Of course nobody really repairs things these days
While I'm sure the OEM would prefer you buy a whole new item, and a 'certified repairman' is likely to spend the extra for the OEM part, the existence of an aftermarket where someone has gone to the trouble to produce a nearly identical replacement part (and perhaps 2 different manufacturers have) tells me that people are in fact fixing these things.
I mean the Duet HT lasted me 15 years (and may last someone else another 15 if I get around to selling it) but the LG bests it in every way. Most impressively it's whisper quiet, barely makes any noise on all but the highest spin speed and even then doesn't shake my whole house like the Duet did. And it does a fantastic job cleaning my laundry. My towels have never been fluffier or more absorbent. It's almost as if someone replaced them mid-wash.
If it's half as reliable as my Duet I'll be ecstatic, and if it breaks I'll fix it. There aren't that many parts and diagnosing these things is pretty easy if you have at least minimum problem solving/deduction/critical thinking skills.
I also repair my appliances because it's quick. I can usually fix it in a day or two without interacting with another human, for very little money.
Anyway, I adore these kinds of blog posts. Tinkering, naughtiness and a big dollop of technical knowhow.
Not sure where you get that from, "Bob" is made/from Paris, France https://daan.tech/en/about-daan-tech/
In Western/South West Europe (Portugal, Spain, France), full-sized dishwashers are a bit more uncommon I think, especially in single/double room flats in bigger metropolitan areas where flat sizes tend to be in the smaller range. As an anecdote, I've lived in maybe ~20 places and only two of them had come with a dishwasher, only one of them was an apartment.
This is the first time I hear about "Bob" and my current place couldn't fit a full-size dishwater but in order to save time and water, I might actually get this. The price is a bit high for what it is though.
I had to pay it myself once in 2013. It was a sunken cost I was ok with given how cutthroat the real estate market is and how much I hate to do dishes.
And as a singleton, you don't often make enough dishes to justify a full load either. (although a twin drawer dishwasher would work a treat there)
I'd gladly use a tabletop dishwasher if I didn't have one, otherwise I'd have to use paper plates and plastic cups.
I've rented in the UK for decades and I've never had a dishwasher or space for one. Friends haven't bothered with dishwashers until they had kids, and then they needed to create a space and add some plumbing.
Dishwashers in the UK seem like the opposite of ubiquitous. Maybe I live in a strange bubble.
Maybe older builds that haven't been updated wouldn't have any space for one as you say, without re-jigging cupboards, so maybe people do. But then you're losing work surface for it..
I lived in Paris for a while. Large appartement have dishwasher, but in single units, it’s uncommon.
I remember looking for solution like that for a renter in a small place without proper plumbing to accommodate a dishwasher.
I also see a market for the so called tiny house folks or full time RVer.
I don’t find that particular product appealing too much, but I would like to see more like that. And I know folks around me that would buy one if it’s was more open and fixable.
Like rearranging plumbing/electrical however you want.
Whether landlords use this advantage for tenants quality of life is a whole other story.
(I've been meaning to get one since the beginning of this year but cashflow has been pretty tight, so it keeps slipping.)
Here's the 2019 data on dishwasher ownership in the UK [0]. More than 50% of two-adult households have them, rising to 64% for two-adult-two-children households. Retired single adult households have the lowest percentage (28%)
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/289337/distribution-of-d...
I assume the target is the tiny home/mobile living market.
eta: I've just looked up the constituents of the dishwasher tablets we've been using, and yes, indeed, they're mostly NaOH, an inert carrier (Na2SO4) and a variety of water-softeners, packaging films to keep everything in tablet form (but soluble) and a small number of helper enzymes, perfumes and whiteners. Looks like a teaspoon of NaOH might work justabout as well. :D
If anything, it'll help clean your sewage pipes!
PS: Most draincleaners are just a concentrated NaOH mixture. Consumers pour them down their drain all the time and nobody worries about this either...
"Lauge" is German for "lye". They're called that because they're made with it.
[1]: Though when I switched my phone keyboard to German just now to test it out, the predictive spelling corrector suggested "Laugenbrezel", not "-brötchen", when I'd got as far as "Laugenb".
The compound is fine in your dishwasher because it will fully react and neutralize in your plastic or coated metal dishwasher casing.
We just mechanically clean them out ourselves, anyway.
They'll generally use a snake/auger. Home Depot sells a basic one for $15. The beefier, further reaching ones cost more. Or, for smaller jobs, there are single-use plastic snakes.
Instead of rinse aid I’m using a 50% citric acid/water solution. The final rinse is at 85c or 185f. The stuff dries instantly. A built in fan/condensation system prevents moisture inside and outside the machine. I’m using two commercial grade peristaltic pumps for the chemicals. I have also considered an enzyme pre-wash; Protease and Amylase. The diswasher is commercial grade, but the racks and operation is just like a normal household dishwasher.
Drinking glasses come out spotless. Rinse Aid is not necessary. I hold them up to the sunlight for inspection and I see nothing.
I’ve come to the conclusion that buying “consumer” or even “prosumer” appliances is a lost cause, all the brands use the same 3 white label Chinese manufacturers and you get the same quality no matter what you buy, you can expect to be shopping for a new appliance in <5 years time.
I’m hopeful that commercial appliances aren’t yet at that stage, you end up paying a significant premium but you save in time and lost effort when you don’t have to deal with buying a new one so soon.
In general that's very true across industry now. For more information on this white labeling phenomenon this documentary is great:
Norway. Asko DWC5926 (DWC5926W). Seko PR-4 and PR-1.
This is the short version. There are some issues and fixes you should be aware of. Like how to fix a design fault at a circulation pump wire. There is also an easier way to rewire the machine from 3 phase to single phase if you’re doing that. Generally the Asko machine is a unicorn. You can also look at the Miele professional dishwashers that come with automatic dosing systems and sanitizing rinse.
Also IME, cheap dishwasher tablets (e.g. the generic blue/white combo) don't work very well.
It’s hands-down the most effective dishwasher I’ve ever used; I never imagined I’d have feelings about or brand allegiance to a dishwasher, but Bosch earned it (and Finish is part of it, I guess).
I couldn’t believe the eco cycle would take 3 hours, but it does a fantastic job. Also never thought I’d care about rinse aid, but now I’m obsessive about never running a cycle without it or having a spare bottle on hand.
This was an excellent post, and zero surprise the secret sauce can be replaced for pence/pennies on the pound/dollar.
Remember the ridiculous “fresh squeezed” juice bags? What’s next? DRM petrol/gasoline for hyper-performance (eco + power + range) auto fuel... but it’s regular gas with a couple drops of stuff added? Music player + headphone combo but you can only listen to Neil Young?
And we have cheaper electricity between 00:30-4:30am so I just always schedule that 3h long eco wash for then.
All my stainless steel pots and pans have a starch layer after cooking potatoes or rice. I've tried all kinds of detergents and am using Alec's "use some detergent for pre-wash" method.
BTW being from India and new to using dishwasher I got into the habit of rising the dishes before placing them in dishwasher. I recommend it. It’s a little extra work but the dishes come out sparkling clean every single time.
Our filter clogs really quickly if we leave too much on the dishes, even with prewash detergent.
As a tea drinker, unless you are very fastidious, handwashing generally doesn't remove everything and a layer can build up in cups which needs standing in bleach every so often to clear out.
Plural.
We're you using two tabs per wash? If not, you aren't prewashing with detergent, so you are washing your dishes in the filth.
This seems unreasonably optimistic
Technology Connections explains why you actually want to use powder:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04
TL; DR: It allows for the pre-wash/rinse cycle to work properly and gets things cleaner, faster.
It has remarkably increased the “crud busting” power of my Bosch. I used to be fastidious about pre-rinsing before going in the dishwasher. Not I’m more confident to just go from table to washer (with a super quick rinse)
Even if you use tablets, buy a bit of liquid or powder and put about a teaspoon into the initial rinse.
On a tangent, the dishwasher is such a wonderful improvement on hand washing. My parents generation still sees the dishwasher as some kind of cheat or lazy way out.
They are so much more efficient and environmentally friendly than hand washing.
If you have more than one or two pots, you’ll easily use more than the couple of liters of water your dishwasher uses (and the heat for that water has to come from somewhere).
We still use it because with kids, every minute saved is a small win.
Heating up water takes way more electricity than running the pumps.
And considering that practically all of the energy use is heating the water, that translates into low energy use.
(Note this is not the case for the normal compartment - that does work differently)
TLDR, bake some baking soda for a few hours to make washing soda.
https://www.drkarenslee.com/make-your-own-homemade-washing-s...
Salt needs to be dosed (read the manual and check the hardness of your water) which is not possible with tabs.
The rinse aid in the tab would be released at the wrong time together with the detergent. (Not sure how big of a problem this is).
I assume he skipped comparing full cycle because showing that there isn’t a difference doesn’t result in a catchy title and an interesting video.
Although it is proprietary, to be fair on two points: there wasn't really any "DRM", it was literally just a one byte counter on an EEPROM so that a cartridge could digitally record the number of washes remaining, and the machine made no attempt to prevent this being changed. The manufacturer also did not prohibit the cartridges from being refilled by owners, this is in stark contrast to printer manufacturers.
I agree they could have done way more to make it easy for users to refill, although it's not prohibited it's completely impractical without some EE knowledge, and as the author says sending cartridges around the world is not a very efficient way of getting detergent back into these things. To be honest a better design would be no cartridges and a couple of reservoirs with level sensors (As you essentially suggested regarding measuring detergent level), since the machine already seems to be capable of pumping an accurate amount of liquid out of the cartridges they wouldn't even need to measure, just fill... I suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design where users have to do the least possible work, as it is more of a luxury product than a utility.
I'm not entirely convinced they are trying to make a serious margin on the cartridges, they work out about 3x the cost of the most expensive dishwasher tablet, but they have to send the thing back to france to be reprocessed and programmed... probably not at a scale to be very cost effective.
I do love the article though, it's great to be able to hack on stuff like this when the manufacturer made poor decisions.
I'd happily buy one of these but, my current one runs like a champ and it's ink-advantage model, so it's really cheap to run.
Mine has split drum and toner. Its life is very long, but I need to find a new drum for it soonish, and it's a bit hard to find. Also Samsung's transfer to HP isn't helping.
Don't want to throw it away because it's a small business printer and a flawless machine from my point of view.
They're more serviceable, longer lasting and they're generally faster and higher quality overall. When used in light duty, they run as long as you can find refills for it.
I always buy original refills BTW. Yes, they're expensive but, they last for a long time and I sleep better at night.
In the days of HP Deskjet 500C/510/550C trio, HP sold official black cartridge refill kits. It was a bit clunky, but you inserted your cartridge to a contraption, pulled some levers in order presented on the device and you'd have an officially refilled cartridge.
The black cartridges on these printers were transparent, held really liquid ink to the brim and the refill device had aluminum, HP branded ink bottles. Oh, the cartridges had air-pillows inside to maintain a positive pressure at all times.
Early restrictions on printer cartridges in the 1990s were simple: they could be bypassed with a bit of tape, or pressing a combination of buttons on the printer. Later, the chips could be reset, probably in a way similar to this. Now, there are encryption keys etc.
> suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design
That is naïve.
> That is naïve.
We are supposed to avoid this kind of retort on HN, but I'll try to read underneath the surface.
I am more likely than most to infer exploitative and manipulative intent behind the choices of large corporations. However I am also very much a realist.
Consider that this company (whom I never herd of before this post) is not some multinational behemoth like Samsung. This product is coming from a very new, small manufacturer of luxury, miniature home appliances in France (so far a manufacturer of 1 appliance it seems). Given their niche target market, it seems far more likely to me that their choice to use cartridges is an attempt to fit that market, than an attempt to milk people for huge margins at scale on a consumable. Yes it's far from economical, but nether is their product.
I may be wrong, but I am not naive.
- Give up on additional revenue;
- Costly to make machine more robust/tolerant to variations in composition/pH/viscosity/etc. of 3rd-party detergent;
- No good way to enforce rinse/calcite removal inside machine - without DRM, user can just pour water as "rinse" liquid, and then lie when RMAing the washer that eventually clogged up and broke.
Obviously anything that means you rake in less money is against the short-term interests of the sales department, but not necessarily the long-term interests of the company.
FWIW this also protects against ignorant drivers who through no fault of their own have never filled up gas. Many countries are full service, as I believe are some US states?
Beats me why filling up gas is made out to be such a difficult task...
>Credit where credit's due, Daan Tech didn't completely lock down the machine with Bob cassettes. Once empty, you can leave it there and add detergents manually.
If that was the true concern they'd have locked that up as well. They want you to pay for convenience, not for the warranty's sake.
I have air filters that notify you when the filters should be checked or changed, I have coffee machines that tell you when you should descale them but they all let you override or ignore the issue if you so desire. And they're a lot less sophisticated than this device.
I'm not a fan of ad-hominem but I do agree with Symbiote that your take in a bit naive. You don't need to be a behemoth to embrace a crappy business model. Remember Juicero?
It's also the almost cliche case study in undergraduate business school. Known as the "Kodak" model or the "Gillette" model: "Give away the camera, sell the film" or "Give away the shaver, sell the blades" and while it's not an exact fit (I doubt they're selling the washer at cost) it's in the same vein.
Look at the lengths Juicero went to create a subscription model for juice. Clearly there is a desire for that business model to be applied more broadly than just inkjet printers.
Absent any indications to the contrary, my default assumption is that we're seeing the same business model applied here.
Their deceit is made more egregious by their supposed care for the environment.
Bollocks. DRM would have been to digitally sign the EEPROM.
This DRM will prevent the average consumer from refilling the cartridges even if it's easily defeated by those with a working knowledge of embedded electronics.
Pretty irrelevant "argumentum ad verecundiam", but for the sake of argument, you are not "average" anymore. Being able to pick Schlage and Kwikset already puts you in the probably 0.1%.
Anyhow, back on track, the average customer does not refill their cartridges. I doubt the idea of doing so has even sparked in their head. (and yes, the average consumer is dumb).
Yes, and this is why this rudimentary hardware DRM is sufficient for the current market. If the marketplace changes and the hack becomes easily attainable and widely used, SW DRM may emerge.
What percentage of the general population knows how to dump an I2C EEPROM, do some reverse engineering to find the counter, and update the counter value? It seems easy to us because we're on HN, and many of us are EEs or other embedded systems people, but it's pretty specialized knowledge in the population at large.
This is absolutely DRM. Not effective DRM when squared off against an embedded systems engineer, but DRM nonetheless. Yes, they could have used a hardened encrypted EEPROM specifically built for these kinds of applications (for example, the ATSHA204A from Atmel/Microchip), but that would have cost more and in applications like this COGS for the disposable element is king. They probably assumed that a simple unencrypted I2C EEPROM would be good enough, and quite honestly they're probably right: unless somebody goes and starts selling a little dongle to reset these cartridges to consumers, it's only going to be a handful of technically-inclined power users resetting them.
A right-click blocker script or those domain locks on old Flash games is a form of DRM as long as it keeps you from copying something. Doesn't have to be elaborate, doesn't have to involve crypto. It just has to have the effect of stopping you from copying something that copyright law protects. Once you have that, then it's unlawful to remove the DRM unless it's for a lawful purpose; and it's unlawful to tell anyone how to remove it for any purpose.
I was in the market for a new washing machine and noticed the Miele W1 machines now have something similar called "TwinDos". You can still add detergent the old-fashioned way but it had me wondering if this is a lead-up to the same business practices we see with Nespresso and inkjet cartridges.
A 70yo family friend loves Miele. Never bought anything else for a dish washer, washing machine or drier. When his dish washer broke down two years ago - he proudly mentioned that it lasted him 22 years - he obviously bought Miele again.
Just half a year later it broke, he called a Miele technician, who said that this wouldn't be covered by warranty: You see, the manual explicitly states that you must run the machine with a higher-temperature program every so-and-so-ishth time, since the ECO program, which is selected by default every time you turn that goddamn thing on, doesn't heat the up the water enough, and all the gunk will add up in the machine's pipes over time, damaging it.
Now that's all fine and logical and I would have shrugged it off if this was an Ikea or no name brand from the local store, but a goddamn Miele that costs premium and is supposed to be a quality product? It's designed by German engineers which probably qualify as rocket scientists in every other country on this planet. And they cannot figure out how to add a counter to that thing so it would warn you if you used ECO mode too many times, or even better yet, make it just raise the temperature automatically even though you selected ECO?
Traditional German companies complain about not being able to compete with competition from eastern Europe and China, but then go ahead and pretty much offer the same quality by going to alibaba.com and ordering from there, with a Miele logo slapped on, while keeping the price the same as before. I can only see this being a short term solution, thanks to those old folks who have your brand image burned into their heads from thirty years ago, and will keep buying your stuff. The family friend from above? He got a discount of 50€ for buying a new Miele, which he happily accepted. qed.
I don't think you can blame acquisition- it is the eternal cycle of brands that at some point they start frittering away their value instead of building it up.
> it is the eternal cycle of brands that at some point they start frittering away their value instead of building it up.
Yeah, maybe I'm reading a bit too much in there, sometimes you just need the wrong guy in charge.
Their washing machines and vacuum cleaners tend to last 30+ years in the experience of my parents, and my vacuum cleaner is over 15 years old at this point as well. Still more silent than most new ones, with great suction, and ergonomic.
That said... the thing about Eco mode is quite horrible indeed. There should be a self-cleaning program that runs as often as necessary and a corresponding reminder on the display.
This is not for you since you mention prices in Euros... I am always surprised when I read about bad experience with their products in the US. Especially the service seems to be some overpriced BS. Miele service is what regular electricians do in Germany.
Yeah this kind of "convenience" makes my BS meter beep. It's a non-problem, and I'm always suspicious of things like this because it's usually a sign they're trying to sneak something past you. (Or marketing to "the new generation" of domestic chores deficient people)
I mean, sure, I get that a dishwasher that needs no plumbing is a good idea, but at the same time, it's too few dishes (in my case) to be a big chore.
Sony had proprietary cassettes for all kinds of products over the years, even when there were standards available (Betamax is the most famous but only one example)
I have 4 handheld voice recorders from the 1970s from my father. Philips, Norelco, Sony, and one other brand. All use the same size microcassette except the Sony. Fuck you, Sony.
Beta had porn.
Furthermore, that's not how home video worked. VHS and Beta were sold on their TV recording capabilities, not their home video libraries. Home video was supposed to be handled by disc formats (Laserdisc, CED, VHD, etc); selling movies on $100-ish tapes was prohibitively expensive compared to ~$15 discs.
Eventually this was worked around with video rental shops and falling prices of VHS tape, but a consequence of this is that neither Sony nor JVC were licensing content for distribution on their tapes. Remember, you could record whatever you wanted on the tape; that was the point.
The design behind VHS made camcorders cheaper to make as well as enabled them to be used to play video. Betamax at the time had a more complicated solution where a separate player was needed and also initially a two stage solution where different tapes had to be used.
One whiff of the cleaning fluid - hmm, this smells like alcohol! Alcohol works great in it.
It also reminds me of back in college in the 70s where there were many audiophiles in the dorm. They'd buy super-special vinyl record cleaning fluid, because nothing but the best for their vinyl records. I just used liquid dish detergent, which works perfectly.
Perhaps the updated version will use encryption, and it'll be like the story in Unauthorized Bread:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
Well I suppose they could add useless gimmicks like "Version 1.2 can now talk directly to Philips Hue bulbs so the dishwasher can blink a lightbulb to notify you"...
I spend a lot more time (still not much) loading and unloading the dishes than I spend acquiring and pouring powder, so I'm not sure what value I'm supposed to think this would provide.
No, you mail it to France and get a full one in the mail.
We ought to reward companies on their ability to come up with environmentally friendly ways to get things done.
For good results, there's two releases of detergent, one for the pre wash and one for the main cycle. Detergent pods have kind of ruined the general dual compartment dishwashing ecosystem, though.
Uh, what? Must be a US thing, whatever the alternative is, because that's (those detergent, salt, perfume, whatever else tablets in a water-soluble wrapper are) all I've ever known. (UK.)
But even here in Aus now, there's a little compartment for pre-wash/rinse detergent... but nobody is aware of it that I've come across. That youtube video was revelationary!
Is that what the video was about? That tablets 'fly in the face of how dishwashers are supposed to work' because you also need rinse aid?
That's nonsense, how every dishwasher I've used has been supposed to work is you keep the salt topped up, the rinse aid topped up, and (supposedly optionally) use a tablet with each wash.
Most dishwashers are designed to have a little detergent in the first cycle and then most in the second cycle. The detergent from the first cycle becomes available to the water immediately, the detergent for the second cycle is the part that you put in the compartment.
If you want to know the details, watch the rest of the video. Or, if you don't want to do that, read your dish washer's manual. Maybe yours was designed without to forego detergent in the first cycle, because people have switched to pods anyway. Maybe it wasn't, and you can get a hygiene boost by using powder instead of pods.
If you use detergent pods, one of your cycles won't run with anything but water. If you put the detergent in the tub, the longer, second cycle runs without detergent. If you put the pod in the little compartment, the first cycle is much less effective than it can be.
Many machines are still designed for powder or gel detergents that you put into both compartments. You can get the same dishwasher performance by using two dishwasher tablets per run (one in the tub and one in the compartment) but that'll use up way more detergent than you actually need.
Rinse aid is for maintaining your dishwasher, that's something different entirely.
This is uncommon, possibly non-existent, in dishwashers sold in Europe in the last decade or longer.
I remember them having a pre-wash detergent compartment in the 1990s, but nowadays there's only a single compartment, for the main wash.
None that I've ever seen here.
> If you want to know the details, watch the rest of the video. Or, if you don't want to do that, read your dish washer's manual.
The video is.. I'm not its target audience. But I do actually have the manual: its 'programme phases' are 'pre-wash', 'wash' (different temperatures depending on setting), rinse, and dry. The detergent tablet is dispensed in the 'wash' phase. There's nowhere to put any to be dispensed in the 'pre-wash' phase. So, instead of 'some then most', it's 'none then all'. I've never known one work differently.
> Many machines are still designed for powder or gel detergents that you put into both compartments.
Right, again, not here: I don't have and have never seen one with two detergent compartments.
I still don't think tablets 'fly in the face of how the machine's supposed to work', there should just be big & little detergent tablets for markets with big & little detergent compartments.
Everywhere else with single compartments, a single tablet works fine, is exactly how the machine's designed to work, and they often even have a 'recommended brand' (for whatever commission).
Some comments here have mentioned that one can put it into the main compartment of the machine. Just squirt it in on the floor, if I understood correctly.
(Washing machines were of course the same - you put in liquid and powder in the draw at the top, rather than throwing in a tablet in with the clothes)
(For what it's worth, I still put liquid in the top of my washing machine! Tablets only seemed to appear for washing machines ~10y ago, at least that I was aware of, and still seem way more expensive /wash.)
Assuming you mean putting it directly in the "tub" versus in the compartment, no that's not true.
The initial fill - which will dissolve anything put directly into the tub - drains fairly quickly. The detergent in the compartment is only released after this point.
If there's nothing in the compartment, there won't be any detergent being used for the bulk of the washing - so regardless of form factor, it's important to use that.
But in addition - rather than instead, putting a small amount of powder in the tub will make the initial rinsing much more effective.
Good point though. A lot of people who use liquid (as opposed to a pod thing) put it in the drum anyway, in a reusable container that comes with some brands. I used to, until I bought a brand that didn't come with one of those on the lid; put it in 'that old-fashioned drawer', and wondered why I hadn't always.
I believe US (clothes) washing machines are usually top-loaders? And stored somewhere else, like a basement or garage?
In the UK most washing machines are front loaders, usually in the kitchen (large houses have a separate utility). There's a draw on the top to put various powders, but I don't remember ever using it and I've been washing clothes since the 90s.
I've never used them though, they seem to solve a problem that barely exists, and at quite a premium.
I suspect we're just much further along in this cycle compared to the US - where manufacturers have accepted that people like the tablets and that's that. There's still the opportunity to get better cleaning with this knowledge though.
It's worth noting there's no need for a pre-wash compartment. They do the exact same thing as if you just put the detergent into the "tub"
And apparently it's even true for such crazy good home products that really don't get enough visibility.
I mean it's the first time I discover this washing machine, and I want one. It's almost like this hacking article was just designed as a disguised advertisement for this washing machine.
Dishwashers are a solved problem and have been for decades. If you search hard enough you can find lower-profile models that solve the "size" problem this current product is trying to address.
I'm not sure whether this company is profitable. Most likely they aren't and the proprietary cartridge system is a way to lock people in for future profits and potentially fishing for VC funding or an acquisition by a bigger unethical company happy to milk this thing out until it collapses.
Their whole eco-friendly concept (pseudo - because shipping the cartridges is anything but) is to appeal to environment freaks with more money than common sense and/or fish for eco-related awards or government grants (just like Solar Roadways).
I see this model as a financing hack... the reason you can buy an HP printer for like $40 isn't because the hardware costs $40, it's because you're effectively paying interest on an invisible loan every time you buy inkjet cartridges. The longer the manufacturer has you buying cartridges, the bigger return on their initial (invisible) loan.
What makes this model shitty to the consumer is there's no cap on the "interest". The "loan" ends once the plastic gear somewhere deep inside the machine breaks and your customer needs to get a new one. Then you're back to competing against everyone else offering the same invisible loans on the Best Buy shelf. If you're lucky, the consumer doesn't see the stockholm syndrome they got themselves into last time and they choose your product again because it's familiar.
It's not helpful to call this an "unethical proprietary practice". It's more helpful to see this as the useful "low teaser rate" financial hack it is, then try to think up new financial models that might be a bit more honest (while still being sufficiently profitable that it makes business-sense to switch).
This is still common practice: Sony and Microsoft generally either sell their consoles to break even or at a loss. The only difference between then and now is that they've made it much harder to run alternate operating systems. As far as I'm aware, Nintendo is the only console manufacturer that actually tries to profit off of hardware sales.
It's a clear method to milk consumers and they can hardly justify the benefit in most cases.
I even don't buy the idea of capsule coffee machines. I like those that give you the option to use pads, but not those that only accept capsule. The environment impact is one reason, but I also want the freedom of choosing the supply and the having control on the running cost.
For a second there, before I'd fully parsed your sentence, I read "milk consumers" as "consumers of milk", and all kind of wild ideas started running through my head: "What, they're going to implement the cartridge scam with MILK?!? How's that going to work -- the carton is connected to the Internet, sends a notification somewhere every time I open it, and I get billed according to the number of times, or...?" Then I realized "milk" was a verb here. Whew!
OK, so call me paranoid... But still: I think the fact that the idea even occurred to me says something not only about me, but about the current state of the world.
I'm quite interested to learn what other household items could be replaced by getting commercial equivalents
I used to have breakfast on the way, lunch at the Uni/work, and a small dinner. 6 plates is therefore close to what I'd use in a week. It's also close to what I'd use nowadays if I weren't still in home office. And while I do have enough room now for a full-sized dishwasher, that wasn't always the case.
They also are more efficient, water wise. Our dishwasher uses 8 liters per wash. If I fill our sink with 8 liters, it barely covers anything. Dish washers use more detergent though, this is why I switched to powder which can be dosed better.
one person, almost one week of plates, washed while you're doing something else
or put some of those pots and pans in instead of plates, if they'll fit
I am guessing college students, vacation homes, etc.
1) Don't rinse first but if you do only use cold water. I have no idea why on earth dishwashers are connected to hot water in the US as this will make the first rinse work very poorly indeed. It is supposed to be cold to removed starches and dairy products...
2) Tabs are a no go but if you insist it should be soap only (not those 3-in-1 etc.) and should be broken in half. It will gunk up the machine in the long run otherwise.
I'd bet that dishwashers would need to be serviced or replaced half as often on average if everyone did this.
Seems to disagree with #1
Start or Resume a Cycle
NOTE: Run hot water at the sink nearest your dishwasher until the water is hot. Turn off water.
I am currently living alone, so my 2/3 size (60cm wide) dishwasher stays for days in rinse/wait mode, until it gets close to full to do an actual washing. It is not very good for tableware.
A friend of mine got a cheap chinese countertop dishwasher with form-factor of Bob, it is not that fancy, but still got color LEDs inside) She is totally happy with it, except small bits like draining used water into bucket with a hose. I can see Bob's designers didn't solve that too.
I was particularly struck by the this comment. So, the machine is small enough that he can have it as a countertop appliance, but it is also small enough that it gets fill with one day's worth of dishes and needs to be run? So it's a high price to pay for diswashing, especially when it seems the machine is not really doing a lot. It seems like it would be better to just wash the dishes yourself.
Anybody who owns one up for dumping the contents of their dishwasher's conversation with Mom?
They'll extort our very last penny we can shed and we will be happy about it and march into this future willingly.
Then the same for the washing machine, and there it is super useful since the machine isn't inside the apartment, but in the washroom, and it is a real problem if I forget the clothes.
But doing this with the dishwasher is not useful.
Then again, I also get notifications multiple times a day when the backups of the servers finished successfully or failed, so it appears that I'm ok with receiving notifications (from machines). Or when devices have connected to the wifi.
Also: brilliant hack!
I'm considering replacing it with an ESP32 and wrap a wire around the cable which should then detect if current is flowing, but I lack a bit of motivation since the current setup is working.
However, I still remember how scarily fast did TV manufacturers go from "the internet is for a richer experience" to "all your data are belong to us". And the worst part is no one, not even regulators flinched a muscle while this data grabbed happened before everyone's eyes.
2) these cassettes are optional
>Credit where credit's due, Daan Tech didn't completely lock down the machine with Bob cassettes. Once empty, you can leave it there and add detergents manually.
Somewhere in some tiny text somewhere, it says you are prohibited from using other similar pods.
I'd love to see an overview of what devices and software they used for the initial connecting to a computer, memory dump and memory modify.
They certainly will be if even a small percent of their customers buy into their ridiculous subscription model. Look at those sweet, sweet margins!
I love the reverse engineering even more. A really step by step process, very well written. However I don't understand this specific step here -
"So my plan now is to read what's inside the EEPROM. It seemed that a special connector is needed, but after rummaging around the parts bin, I found that it fits into a USB-A female socket just fine! Although I had to insulate the metal case so it won't short on the PCB contacts."
Can anyone that understands explain how the EEPROM board can be plugged into a USB socket? Are they similar or is there some overlap? Once its inserted do I use USB protocol to read the data? This is the most interesting part of the whole thing for me. Wish the author explained this more, even if in a separate blog.
Edit: Here https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/mast... you can see the white and red wires coming from the USB connector labelled as SDA and SCL.
Electrically, it's not USB though. It's two pins for power, and two for I2C clock and data. It might happen to have the same voltage and pin mapping for power as USB, though, so plugging in to a USB port on a computer might not blow anything up. A microcontroller with a USB host port might even be able to bit-bang I2C over the appropriate pins, but that would be rather clever...
We pay at least half of that depending on store prices and whether or not we use name brand Cascade and Jet Dry.
Sure, you are adding a valve or two, perhaps a couple more sensors, but long term cost savings would be enormous.
Of course, from a pounds-and-pennies sense, the work he did, hacking the washer, was probably worth enough to buy a dozen of them.
"Dosing can be tricky..." So can holding onto your sanity in today's consumer world. After generations of TV advertising, reason is supposed to be the consolation prize.
Isn't it better to manually wash those 2 to 6 dishes, 1 to 3 glasses and maybe 1 pan?
Hilarious. Sounds like somebody's manager overheard a conversation about one-time pads on the subway
I found this particular line laugh out loud funny. This whole post was a great and a fun read. Cheers.
Sometimes it seems like the world has gone mad. Then you see something like this and realise, no, some other people out there are logical too.
How does this math make any sense?
With that, the total cost per wash is:
0.62p + 0.018p = 0.638p, or 0.87 US cent!
We know from earlier that Bob Cassettes costs 48p (67c) per wash.
Therefore, refilling it yourself is more than 75 times cheaper, resulting in a massive 98.7% cost saving compared to buying new!
Running a second rinse cycle will still put you ahead so far as water consumption, because dishwashers use much less water than hand-washing.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. I do rinse my dishes with cold water before use after I take them out of the washer though.
So you don't have to buy their cassettes. You can just fill it like a regular dishwasher.
Technically even this single byte is "DRM", it's just a really simple DRM.
Or, technically, it's not "digital rights", since the "R" stood for copyright as applied to works of art (music/movies/video games).
Maybe they should just make each cartridge have an NFT, snort.
It would have never come into my mind that this is something that even exists.
What's with the tabs you put into the little chamber, or which I'm just dropping into the cutlery holder since the chamber lid broke of. Aren't they compatible or what?
----
For their website:
Is the use of a Bob cassette mandatory? No. However, to ensure optimal washing quality and higher Bob life durability we recommend using the Bob cassette.
Can I refill my Bob cassette myself? No.
We use a highly concentrated detergent formula which is not publicly available for sale.
So we have set up a way to collect used cassettes, clean them and refill them in our factory.
This allows us to offer you an optimal washing quality with a zero waste solution!
Seems fair to me.
Are you aware that if your dishwasher has a pre wash cycle before the main wash cycle; then your detergent will be wasted. ? A pre wash cycle is common in european dishwashers.
Pre-Wash cycle ("Vorspühlen") is an additional button which would need to be in a depressed state for this short cycle to be additionally executed and fully exchange the water, but I never use it. I think the main cycle also does refresh a certain percentage of its water, I'm not sure about it. But just using one tab is not enough.
I buy the cheap ones from Aldi which are € 0.04 a piece. I use the machine 1.5 times a week, so that extra tab is ~ €1.40 a year.
But what a great article it is. All the details are in there.
Expecting DMCA take down in 3, 2, 1....
A few weeks ago while standing ten deep in Safeway, I read the label.
Right on front, they listed at least 11 ingredients. Nothing looked outrageous, but I thought about all the times I didn't rinse that well.
I now stoped using it on my dishes.
I think the lawyers told them to list the ingredients in bold print?
Anyhoo--I now rinse much better than before, and on the lookout for just plain soap.