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.
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.
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.
- 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
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.
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.
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])
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
Same exact story here. I was heavily leaning towards Bosch because "buy once, cry once" and their products seemed very high quality. I'll be looking elsewhere now.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
But others like coffee machine, lights, solar, AC, ventilation, robot vacuum, car charger, hot water heater, speakers are so obviously better when connected.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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...
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 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.
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.
> 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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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! :)
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".
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.
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.
> 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?
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.
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).
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)
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
This is clearly a warning to those reading this thread. Likely also an attempted knowledge sharing with the post's author.
> 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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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:
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 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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 453 ms ] threadWorst 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.
Rtings seems good for now, but who knows how long that will last
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.
- 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.
-edit- It's currently preeeeeeeetty sparse. Hopefully it (or something like it) catches on in the future.
Employers, state and local governments, businesses open to the public, commercial facilities, transportation providers, etc, are required to procure ADA compliant appliances where applicable.
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.
(Although it does have the shitty capacitative buttons that I can never tell whether I've pushed or not.)
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?
More like ... will never actually need.
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.
And: if you cannot find the manuals readily online, that's another black strike / red flag against the product and vendor.
What he has is a "smart" dishwasher
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.
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.
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.
>
> 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.
See how Bosch likes the power of web ads.
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicalized_%28Doctorow_book%2...
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.
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.
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.
We could all run our own mail servers and there’s a good reason we don’t.
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.
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?)
That said I'd much rather it be a simple local HomeKit integration instead of cloud only custom app BS.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
But others like coffee machine, lights, solar, AC, ventilation, robot vacuum, car charger, hot water heater, speakers are so obviously better when connected.
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
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.
So I just live without the extra features.
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 wondering - maybe they have a deal with amazon that says what serial number was sold to who?
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.
- 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.
Thanks for the links though.
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.
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.
- 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.
Jeff shows manual explicitly saying when you need an app, so this could have been avoided.
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.
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.
In any case, generating lots of heat inside the oven is probably safer than doing it outside it.
- 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'm joining the others in saying I don't know where to find this info...
- 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 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.
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".
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.
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.
LG 48GQ900
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.
They should all get hit with the open box problem from the returns.
And Consumer Reports (which I am a "member") needs to call them out and hard for this.
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.
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 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...
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.
If there was any influencer I'd want to know that from it's Louis Rossmann.
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.
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?
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).
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.
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?
That is not what the post to which you replied said nor implied. Instead, it reads thusly:
This is clearly a warning to those reading this thread. Likely also an attempted knowledge sharing with the post's author.> 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?
Safety third.
That sounds draconian, do you have any examples of home insurance policies that do this? Is this common in reality?
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.
>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?
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.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469297
It's linking to a website with the following explanation:
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!
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.
Easy. Just buy a dumb monitor. Why do you even need the TV tuner?
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.
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?
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% :)
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.
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.
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 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?
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 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?
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.
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.
At least we are seeing actual, tactile buttons start their return in cars!
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.
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?
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).
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).
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?
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.
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.
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.
2012 I won’t connect my tv to your cloud
2015 I won’t connect my car to your cloud