News Your washing machine could be sending 3.7 GB of data a day — LG washing machine owner disconnected his device from Wi-Fi after noticing excessive o...

[Heat_Fan89]

99% of Smart Appliances are nothing but "a solution in search of a problem."

YUP! It's like they add useless complexity just to drive sales.

 

[BillyBuerger]

I needed a new washer dryer this last year and got a pair of LG. Interestingly, they are the "matching" models but the dryer isn't a "smart" model but the washer is. I had no intention of using the smart features. But with my old appliances, I had to occasionally use the diagnostics to determine an issue to repair them. The smart washer appears to require using the smart features to access diagnostic data. So I was going to set that up in case I needed it. But the LG ThinQ app that they use to manage all of their smart appliances won't let you set it up without allowing it to have access to your exact GPS location. WTF? What does GPS have anything to do with checking the status of my appliance. So I immediately uninstalled it and never connected the Wifi of the appliance to anything. I looked into removing the wifi hardware completely just to be sure but stopped before I did that. I'm assuming not connecting it to my wifi should be enough to avoid issues.

 

[_dawn_chorus_]

What in seven hells does a washing machine need wifi for??

 

[DavidLejdar]

YUP! It's like they add useless complexity just to drive sales.

Might sure apply in some cases. In my view, there is some practical stuff though - a lot of it similar to fan curves/control in PCs. I.e.

- radiator thermostat, which lets you set the time and temparature for heating. Even comes with the possibility to automatically turn off, when a window is opened for ventilation.

- smoke detector, which also notifies by app, when it triggers. Similar exists for water leak.

- when one is lucky to have a garden, a watering system, which looks at how the temperature was during the day, etc.

- when one has photovoltaic panels, instruction to washing machine to turn on (when loaded) once there is energy being produced. Similar for water boiler, or i.e. home car charging.

- motion detector stuff, for security, but also possible to connect to light control or to hifi system.

- smart plugs, which make stand-by electricity consumption non-existent, and can possibly also extend a wifi network.

- fridge camera, with which one can check what there is or not is, such while in a supermarket.

- and if one wants to be all futuristic-like, in a small city flat, space is limited. So, having some option, such as moving mounted home-office screens away, such would also seem neat. This in particular is more about a mechanical solution to begin with. But when one has one, being able to tell it smartly when one will be at home for home office, for everything to be ready, including turning on by itself, not useless per se.

One can live without any of that of course. But i.e. having a dedicated GPU seems more of an luxury to me, than a smart radiator thermostat does.

 

[Joseph_138]

His washing machine was probably part of a bot network. This is the danger of the "internet of things". Some appliances do not have to be connected, for any reason. I don't care about pushed updates. If my vacuum cleaner is working fine as it is, then why do I need an update? That always on connection, leaves your home network vulnerable to attack, or unauthorized use. Imagine being arrested for child porn being distributed from your IP address, then finding out it was one of your internet connected appliances, that was being used by a hacker, that was distributing the images.

 

[Joseph_138]

What in seven hells does a washing machine need wifi for??

Presumably, to connect to the factory when a repairman is dispatched, to help with diagnosing the problem.

 

[aberkae]

Presumably, to connect to the factory when a repairman is dispatched, to help with diagnosing the problem.

How often do they break down? I've had Samsung and LG non smart or connected to the internet Washing machines for decades now and both are still functional. Another reason is probably to connect to an app on your phone that can tell you when the load is done or remotely control the appliance, as well as notifications just in case you are the target demographic audience with short attention span ( the ones into YouTube short videos and Ticktock videos they are conditioning the public to become the ideal citizen 🤪). I wonder how much data my LG CX is sending 🤔? Will analyze further.

 

[PEnns]

Current devices have that connectivity as a feature.

Ping your phone when it is done, and all that.

Some people want that.

I was at Best Buy a few weeks ago and happened to look at my phone's WiFi / Bluetooth for a second. It was scary. (People should look at it, just for fun)

There were easily 250+ machines (fridges, washing machines, freezers, microwaves, you name it) waiting to connect!!

So there is definitely a demand for them, but artificially created by manufacturers and their data brokers trying to grab data to sell: "Hey look, Joe Doe in Spokane is low on beer and cheap frozen burgers. let's text him a reminder".

Many people think it's cool...and those are the ones who care a fig about their privacy...till their privacy hits the fan

 

[USAFRet]

I was at Best Buy a few weeks ago and happened to look at my phone's WiFi / Bluetooth for a second. It was scary. (People should look at it, just for fun)

There were easily 250+ machines (fridges, washing machines, freezers, microwaves, you name it) waiting to connect!!

So there is definitely a demand for them, but artificially created by manufacturers and their data brokers trying to grab data to sell: "Hey look, Joe Doe in Spokane is low on beer and cheap frozen burgers. let's text him a reminder".

Many people think it's cool...and those are the ones who care a fig about their privacy...till their privacy hits the fan

A few years ago I bought a new water heater.
The second cheapest from the BigBoxStore....WiFi.

WHY???

I've had to manage the temp on that thing exactly once. The day I installed it.

I did not enable that WiFi.

 

[palladin9479]

Even worse, grabbing a prebuilt library or framework, that does all that connectivity crap.
With no investigation into exactly what it is doing.

"We can utilize the well known bla bla framework, and thus can reduce development time by 60%!"

Oh boy I'm in the middle of that right now. One of our dev teams is working on the next release of some financial related components and is wanting to do Spring Boot 3. Thankfully they've all learned to first come to me and plan out the technical side of the solution instead of just rushing ahead in a sandbox.


My take on "Smart" anything is that I will only use it if I control the service endpoint, not some underpaid dude in India. I have some Phillips Hue lights with a control Bridge that doesn't speak to mothership and I control with some opensource software that I manage.

 

[subspruce]

There is no reason this level of surveillance and information harvesting is necessary.

It's for making money

 

[subspruce]

Grandparents had a washer with a mechanical cycle timer/control, and the machine literally never wore out.

Compare to current "smart" appliances pouring tons of data to who knows where, and MAYBE lasting two years. We've improved how?

not at all

 

[COLGeek]

Please stay on topic, folks. Thank you.

 

[worstalentscout]

An LG washing machine owner disconnected the appliance from Wi-Fi after noticing it ate 3.66GB of daily data. He took to Twitter / X to ask for help and advice.

Your washing machine could be sending 3.7 GB of data a day — LG washing machine owner disconnected his device from Wi-Fi after noticing excessive o... : Read more

well...... the washing machine needs to update it's followers on Reddit, FaceBook, etc etc......so completely reasonable..........

 

[TheOtherOne]

This is just proof of why some devices should not be "smart" and stay dumb :|

More like those devices should never be "always online".
Plenty of "Smart" home appliances work great, like on a timer or auto turn off after getting things done or at a certain temperature level etc.. etc... All those features actually are "Smart", just not always connected to Internet.

 

[subspruce]

Imagine being arrested for child porn being distributed from your IP address, then finding out it was one of your internet connected appliances, that was being used by a hacker, that was distributing the images.

And then needing a day of leave for a court case and having your reputation ruined. Just because of a smart appliance. That's wild.

 

[James Tiberius Kirk]

People absolutely don't need a smart washer or dryer to live a normal life. This is simply an industry choosing to monitor you and your habits in your own home to study you day and night as a test subject. Next, they will require it to connect to your wifi or the machine won't turn on or function properly at a degraded legacy state.

 

[ien2222]

A few years ago I bought a new water heater.
The second cheapest from the BigBoxStore....WiFi.

WHY???

I've had to manage the temp on that thing exactly once. The day I installed it.

I did not enable that WiFi.

TBH, if it came with a robust enough app, I'd actually like it.

We had a water heater with a thermostat that was starting to fail, that itself doesn't really matter, but what I found interesting was how much that increased our utility bill , I think it was somewhere about $20-30/month. (Our usage varies quite a bit month to month so it's hard to put a more exact number to it).

If the water heater can be setup to vary a bit throughout the day and is able to track usage so you can optimize it, depending on where you are you could actually save a bit of money over the course of each month. Depending on size of family and where you live, maybe you could get energy savings up to $10-20 a month or more. On top of that, you have family coming over for the next few days? Put in some temporary changes to help maintain hot water or if you're going on a trip, reduce the temp.

Depending on factors, a water heater could be the most expensive part of your energy bill, which it is for us about 3-4 months out of the year.

That said, I don't think I'd want wi-fi, maybe NFC for a phone.

 

[stonecarver]

It would be interesting from you guys out there with the smart house stuff to use a Anti-spy wireless RF signal Detector.

Had an issue with a ex family member that got out of control so me and the kids bought a $300. unit do just that.

We found item after item but the last one before I took the kids and moved was called "hallway speaker" the detector refused to let go of.

The moment you turned on the sniffer it pinged it hard. We checked everywhere , even the attic. The only device left in hallway was her new smart thermostat.

Smart stuff to me is a foot in the door to something else.

 

[AGBGC2]

I also had this problem with a Samsung dishwasher. Connected it to Wifi, and a few weeks later realized it was using over 3.5GB per day. This is well above any other legitimately highly used devices in my home. The only thing I get in return for that is a popup notification that a wash cycle completes. I can easily believe they are using these devices for data or crypto mining or a botnet. But I too am using an Asus router. I've never seen any other devices seemingly reported incorrectly though. It was an easy decision to quickly remove the dishwasher from my network permanently. I haven't investigated the Asus problem, but all other devices seem perfectly normal.

 

[AGBGC2]

This is so true. Developers generally do not care about security, they only care about getting their shiny new thing across the finish line into production. I've seen absolutely bonkers stuff like someone hard coding the encryption key to "password" inside the application source code. That was how they hoped to passed the security review for their application by claiming it encrypted everything.

This is more of an issue with the company than the developers. I have seen too often the move to Agile dev processes cause this problem. Instead of properly following Agile and continuing to improve and develop, the bean counters see a 1.0 release and everyone yells STOP DEVELOPING to save money and the POS 1.0 becomes the permanent final product. Google is really bad at this. They never improve a product beyond 1.0, just lets them sit stale for years.

 

[thestryker]

Might sure apply in some cases. In my view, there is some practical stuff though - a lot of it similar to fan curves/control in PCs. I.e.

- radiator thermostat, which lets you set the time and temparature for heating. Even comes with the possibility to automatically turn off, when a window is opened for ventilation.

- smoke detector, which also notifies by app, when it triggers. Similar exists for water leak.

- when one is lucky to have a garden, a watering system, which looks at how the temperature was during the day, etc.

- when one has photovoltaic panels, instruction to washing machine to turn on (when loaded) once there is energy being produced. Similar for water boiler, or i.e. home car charging.

- motion detector stuff, for security, but also possible to connect to light control or to hifi system.

- smart plugs, which make stand-by electricity consumption non-existent, and can possibly also extend a wifi network.

- fridge camera, with which one can check what there is or not is, such while in a supermarket.

- and if one wants to be all futuristic-like, in a small city flat, space is limited. So, having some option, such as moving mounted home-office screens away, such would also seem neat. This in particular is more about a mechanical solution to begin with. But when one has one, being able to tell it smartly when one will be at home for home office, for everything to be ready, including turning on by itself, not useless per se.

One can live without any of that of course. But i.e. having a dedicated GPU seems more of an luxury to me, than a smart radiator thermostat does.

The only thing you listed which would justify an always on internet connection is the fridge camera bit. The problem is every "smart" device which is going to provide these features will also need to be connected to the internet. Most people aren't arguing against smart features so much as the fact that these devices also require always on internet connections.

TBH, if it came with a robust enough app, I'd actually like it.

We had a water heater with a thermostat that was starting to fail, that itself doesn't really matter, but what I found interesting was how much that increased our utility bill , I think it was somewhere about $20-30/month. (Our usage varies quite a bit month to month so it's hard to put a more exact number to it).

If the water heater can be setup to vary a bit throughout the day and is able to track usage so you can optimize it, depending on where you are you could actually save a bit of money over the course of each month. Depending on size of family and where you live, maybe you could get energy savings up to $10-20 a month or more. On top of that, you have family coming over for the next few days? Put in some temporary changes to help maintain hot water or if you're going on a trip, reduce the temp.

Depending on factors, a water heater could be the most expensive part of your energy bill, which it is for us about 3-4 months out of the year.

That said, I don't think I'd want wi-fi, maybe NFC for a phone.

The problem is these devices all want internet access. What you're talking about I agree is a solid use case, but also doesn't need to be internet connected to be done.

 

[AGBGC2]

What in seven hells does a washing machine need wifi for??

So that they can track usage, because all of the communists don't want you to buy a washer and use it until it dies, they want to get to a point where you buy it and then continue to PAY PER USE as a subscription model, just like where they are trying to take electric cars.

 

[AGBGC2]

A few years ago I bought a new water heater.
The second cheapest from the BigBoxStore....WiFi.

WHY???

I've had to manage the temp on that thing exactly once. The day I installed it.

I did not enable that WiFi.

You are missing out on the huge benefits of a hybrid heat pump water heater then! While I agree that most of these IOT devices are useless unnecessary overhead, the advantages and cost savings that I've seen from my hybrid Rheem water heater have been immense.

 

[USAFRet]

You are missing out on the huge benefits of a hybrid heat pump water heater then! While I agree that most of these IOT devices are useless unnecessary overhead, the advantages and cost savings that I've seen from my hybrid Rheem water heater have been immense.

A hybrid water heater heat pump has nothing to do with needing internet access or WiFi.