This is all great, until....

A hacker is in, and decides it's time to have some fun.

Frig quits and your beer is warm, Washer go into a week long spin cycle. Dryed go into extreme heat mode and shrinks you stuff to kiddie size. Range goes into self clean mode, you are locked out and the roast is dead meat. AC is blasting and it's -10 outside, or it summer and the heat comes on full steam.


Yup, connected life is great....LOL

I know there are washing machines on the market that currently sense if there is water coming into the unit and will produce an error if no water is detected.

With the number of sensors and such now a days I’m sure there’s a way manufacturers could put sensors into these devices and when the machine gets installed requires you to go through a setup which will run a pressure test so it knows how much water/gas pressure is getting to the unit. Should this pressure be reduced by a certain percentage (say 5% for a washing machine, to account for pressure changes when the showers on dishwashers running and toilet gets flushed) the machine turns off, triggers the alarm and triggers the automation system to close the valve/s. Could get to the point where it’s smart enough to know whether it’s the hot or cold water and only closes that specific valve.

Yeah, Im sure it can be done. But the question is are any manufacturers thinking of actual useful ideas like this, or just saying "you can know when the laundry is done!"

mostly agree. I just wanted to add (concerning the stove) For a slowcooker or a bread machine, even a coffee maker I can get the attraction of a timer/ starting things early but not for an oven. For me it is not about burning down the house but he math of the situation.

Let's take his example of a lasagna, what takes time and effort is making that nice meat sauce, making that béchamel... all those pots to clean. Once you have a lasagna ready to bake (if you make it or you buy a frozen one) it takes around 20 minutes to cook. That is why when I used to travel a lot I used to make lasagna and shepherds pie all the time. you do the heavy lifting a day or two before leaving, when you get back home you put it in the oven, go upstairs change, go to the kitchen make a nice salad set the table, and voila you have a nice hot dish ready to eat when you are ready to eat it.


Now if you go with something more interesting (like I will be making today) roasted potatoes , pork tender loin and roasted bok choy salad. Then this is what happens

1) take out pork and put it on the counter
2) 10-15 minutes later: prep potatoes and put them in the oven
3) 15-20 minutes later: pan fry the outside of the pork, prep and add it to the oven (make bacon at the same time)
4) 20 minute latrter cut bok choy in half add oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and add it to the oven
5) when the pork is ready, take it out and put an aluminum foil on top (let it rest)
6) take out bok choy and chop it up, add bacon, add some nice cherry tomatoes, make vinaigrette and toss salad...
7) cut pork
8) take out potatoes and eat

will his magic oven be able to change the porc from refrigerated to room temp and keep it there while the potatoes are cooking at 400?

Back in the day I was chafing at the possibilities, but it was too expensive to integrate all of this automation into appliances and have a cost effective user interface. And, commodity home networking did not exist. Now, all of this is mostly a cheap trick. Unfortunately, manufacturers are not concerned about security and data about our use of everything is considered a profit center or some sort of government mandate.

There are lots of very useful applications. One that has always intrigued me is monitoring the performance of home systems. For example, if the outside temperature is 30°F and your thermostat calls for heat, it normally requires a certain amount of time for the house to come up to temperature. (one can track door openings and throw this into the equation) If this heat-up time begins to stretch out over time, there is a fault that needs to be investigated. A remote service company could track this and send a service tech around long before the system actually fails. Early maintenance could easily save money in fuel costs. System controlled drapes could take advantage of daytime sunlight and hold heat during dark hours. Further savings could be realized in cases where no one is home during the day and the system should be calling for heat, but it's a sunny day and in about an hour there will be enough sun energy to raise the temperature above the set set point. It would be a complete waste of fuel to bring the house up to the set point, only to have the sun cause overshoot in an hour.

Lack of security and all of the data mining is causing me to pause my vision.

Of course none of these negatives are necessary, they are the consequence of lazy, greed, and authority.

Yes, one of the key things in all of this is that mfrs are adding all sorts of diagnostics to their devices for emergency alerts, preventative maintenance and remote diagnostics.

I can imagine a third party like Parasol or OneVision monitoring these conditions as they would network and other ecosystem conditions.

AS for me, I would like to know what my mom has in the fridge and what she has been eating or not eating. She has dementia and doesn't eat. Is she even opening the fridge in the first place? Does she open it for a long time as if trying to figure out what to eat, and then close the door without grabbing anything?

I would like to have that information in the same place (app) I keep all my other mom-monitoring stuff, not in a separate fridge-specific app.

Ditto with alerts and control of the stove (of course) and washing machine (less obvious -- do I need to remind her to put the laundry in the dryer?)

I think many use cases will reveal themselves in the coming years. In the meantime, why NOT hope for APIs and SDKs and other tools to integrate?

Seeing what my mother went through looking after my grandmother, I could see this being useful. The couple of potential issues I see are, first, putting technology in the home of someone with dementia could be a bigger problem. Maybe implement the control system primarily to monitor but leave devices so they can still manually operate them? Second issue is more of just a question of cost. Wouldn’t people that can afford a control system for a parent more likely be able to afford a part time care taker? Especially since a system wouldn’t make a dementia patient independent. It’s only prolonging their need of full time care. These are just thoughts.



There’s nothing wrong with this. But at the same time, it’s always good to remember that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

There is a long period of time when a person with dementia refuses care because "there's nothing wrong with me."

Also, using electronic systems, even while someone might be on-site to care for the person, can help discern patterns that might not otherwise be detectable.

There are other conditions, in any case, that would warrant some kind of remote "care" but not require daily on-site care.

This would all be terribly impractical today, but at least we can start to imagine how this data could be harnessed for specific use cases ... beyond the obvious applications for foodies.

If the manufacturers would just state why their smart appliances are a good thing (never mind trying to get us to believe we actually need them), maybe we could stop speculating.

So far, none of the smart features seem necessary. LG fridge with a panel that allows seeing inside? Great- why not just look when grabbing food items? They say it can tag items and let the user know when they're old- how hard is it to check a fridge for something that's old?

I'm watching an LG video and all of it seems to be designed for people who are incredibly lazy. The presenter said nothing about any use for monitoring people.

50-60 years ago when the TV remote control was invented, I wonder how many grumpy people said "Seems like something for lazy people". Here we are 50-60 years later....

The remote was invented for people without kids....LOL

Brad brought up a great point, if not for lazy people, we would all be out of work. I mean, Im kind of surprised that at least one of us havent had a client ask for one of those floating chairs in the movie Walle with beverage dispensers and touch screens mounted on it.

But, you got to the real point of the original question. Is there anything to this for us, yet? Im not saying there will never be a valid reason to integrate white goods. Just is it time yet to try? Or is would it right now just create more problems than it would be worth.

If they aren't lazy, they're unwilling, unable or inept. How many homeowners want to learn as much as we have to know about this stuff with the possibility of never using that knowledge? How many know anything about structures, wall/floor/ceiling construction or how to install cabling in a way that will allow it to last a long time or be replaced without tearing holes in walls? I have seen car audio installers use 1" drywall screws when they built subwoofer boxes- if that guy did it as a job, how many homeowners will think "Well. it's longer than the thickness of the board, so.....".

I'm working on a house that got all new appliances and yesterday, I noticed that the GE oven and microwave have different numeral fonts and yes, they're next to each other in the cabinet.

Have a commercial project where the stove requires an internet connection or the warranty is void.

I guess we start specifying data drops at TV, and appliance locations.

Wonder how long before we see high heat rated cat requirements for some of these things.