Nice write-up by Jeff.
Things are getting out of hand. It’s time for a change. Only buy equipment with local access.
Things like these are getting ridiculous and the most unreasonable of it all is that most people do not consider this as predatory and invasive behaviour from manufacturers.
I like my appliances dumb. Don’t try to sell me a smart TV, a smart fridge or a smart anything. It does not need to connect to the internet. It needs to do one specific task and one only. I don’t need my fridge to order groceries.
I couldn’t agree more with your stand about the need for devices to be smart.
It is all about data-mining and advertising.
Maybe this is just me (or wishful thinking), but I do notice more people being cautious about stuff that needs a cloud connection.
People around me create dummy accounts to register Android enabled televisions, prefer stuff by eufy over ring etc.
Maybe we -as a bunch of uncontrollable nerds- should educate people more or at least share stuff like the wiki by Louis.
People need to know, they are the product…
I can’t say the same thing, sadly.
People around me get easily fascinated by convinience over security and privacy. Biometric phone unlocking, work-only-through-app accessories, smart tvs, connected refrigerators, kitchen robots and expresso machines, autonomous vaccuum cleaners or web enabled water heaters and ACs… convenience rules absolute.
I enjoy going to stores and have sales people throw their pitch at me. The look on their face is priceless as all the convenience functions don’t ring any appeal to me; nothing against them, they are doing their job, but still.
I hope we can force change and push back on the ever growing invasive tactics of companies and markets.
I’m with him, what happens when my internet drops out (which it does on the reg)?
I can’t run the dishwasher cuz AWS us-east-1 is down
They didn’t learn the lesson of Sim City.
I don’t think we should let vendors get away with this stuff.
Yes returning it is a huge hassle. But if you’re not returning it you still bought their product, supported them financially and that product line. Even if they see you not activating cloud features in numbers, others do and they can make very favorable calculations.
The single most effective way to not let them get away with it is returning it. As an unacceptable product.
LG pulls some of this BS too. When I tried it a few years ago, the LG app required always-on precise location permission to function at all. The smart features on my washer and refrigerator also require them to always be connected to the Internet but those features were more limited that what Jeff describes. I was willing to allow the appliances Internet access from an isolated subnet, but there is no way I’m going to allow LG access to all of my phone’s location data just so I can run their crappy, barely functional app.
In Mexico Bosch is even more customer hostile. My Bosch water heater had to be replaced because Bosch discontinued the repair parts needed to fix it. It’s only 3 years old.
This makes me more determined to keep maintaining my old non-computerized appliances.
You should 100% do that. Efficiency gains are less and less, they love baking in “eco” features that are to work around deficiencies in design, and modern home appliances suffer from poor cold solder joints failing causing the whole machine to die frequently. Easy to fix if you have a soldering iron, but should be unacceptable.
Only reason I ended up replacing my old old dishwasher, for example, was that a leak developed in the bottom of the wash pan and it started leaking on the floor, and at that point, 20+ years old, it was likely going to have cascading failures of other parts, and mold mitigation and replacing the subfloor were not worth the risk. Otherwise I’d have kept swapping parts as they failed.
Ended up going with the Bosch 500 due to friends’ personal reviews, as well as Consumer Reports and the like backing up that it does its job. Didn’t buy it for cloud, didn’t buy it for apps, bought it to wash dishes.
The extra price was annoying versus a cheaper model, but better build quality and less noise is what that extra price is paying for. The app/cloud stuff is just silly bonuses that don’t matter.
Definitely keep the old stuff though, it’s generally simpler to repair and maintain and more reliable, unless you hit a critical failure that increases risk too much. (There’s some statistical analysis rule about that, with each new operating mode, each new feature, that adds a multiplicative factor to chance of failure.) Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise too, replaced the main controller in a 20+ year old stove and the modern flavor of the controller cycles the heating coils differently, it actually produces more consistent heat than the old controller board. It was like a free cooking upgrade.
I have a Samsung fridge and the app is the same - it demands always-on precise location or it refuses to function.
Absolutely. Fucking. Not.
We have lg washer and dryer and I just set up thinQ on my wifes new phone. It asked for location and when denied it said automations might not work. Asked my wife, she said what’s that? So location disabled app works fine. My main issue is not being able to just set a custom wash or dry from the machine. Why do I have to download a program if all I want is to lower the dryer temp without choosing delicate, which also shortens the time. Just have a full custom cycle and let me customize it.
They must have changed the location demand it because of the complaints they were getting.
Mine has some features that aren’t available without the app, but I only really cared about the end of cycle signal and the refrigerator temperature. Zigbee sensors provide the same function without requiring an Internet connection.
I hate how they don’t mention connectivity anymore when buying shit. None of the reviews mention this either that the app has tracking and that you have to pay for stuff. If they do mention it, it’s barely a brief mention of it, and nothing more. I got my van in 2023 and it needs an app but luckily Toyota gives me an option to turn all that shit off so now I have a dumb van supposedly. And I fucking hate vehicles with Wi-Fi. Why the fuck does my vehicle need Wi-Fi? My phone has Wi-Fi.
Just wait until AI enters production. We’ll have “AI powered” dishwashers
LG has been selling “AI powered” washing machines for years. They are terminally indecisive and probably don’t use AI.
That dishwasher runs perfectly fine without connecting to an app. Been using it that way for half a year.
People are so obsessed for nonsense features. Just set normal mode, auto air, start. Done. You know when it finished because the red light shining on the floor turns off, it beeps at you, and auto air opens the door so it can dry faster.
Guess what? You just had a machine wash dishes for you and you didn’t even hear it running the whole time.
Check the trash filter occasionally, which is a physical part you can pull out from the bottom and wash in the sink. Clean the gaskets occasionally to keep a clean seal like any dishwasher.
I will probably open it up at some point and see if I can damage/remove the radio so it can’t ever connect to anything.
It’s a dishwasher, it doesn’t have to massage your plates’ backs. Nothingburger rant.
Rinse, delayed start and eco mode are unneeded features? Delay start is one of my most used features, many power companies charge less if you use electricity in the middle of the night. Rinse is incredibly useful for if water got stuck on/in some dishes, and eco mode saves power and water. How is a high-end dishwasher not having things that many people use daily “a nothingburger?”
Bosch has a lot of goodwill. Interesting how they decide to spend it. Also Consumer Reports needs to start considering Internet connectivity, because the risks from Internet connected dishwashers are real and scary.
I moved to a new place and it came with one of these.
Besides the inconvenience of essentially paywalling features, it fucking GUZZLES rinse aid and send you notifications about needing more, and it doesn’t rinse it all the way off meaning my dishes need rinsing before drinking out of a glass for example.
Fuck Bosch and fuck Consumer Reports. What an absolute ingot of microplastic pollution someone rammed into my kitchen
Forget rinse aid. Get one of those ramekins you get with some desserts, put in some vinegar and put the dish among the plates at the bottom. Sparklyyyyy.
(I had a Bosch too, now have a Miele)
Isnt this really tough on the dishwasher internals? Corrosively so? Thats why I veered away from this way thus far.
The water is really hard where I live, the limescale pretty much neutralises the vinegar. And a lot of rinse aid is citric acid or vinegar anyway!
Sick, so is my water. I love my well but wow the minerals are insane. Going to steal this tip and use it from now on, thanks!
You could also just pour that into the rinse aid dispenser…
Which didn’t work, hence the ramekin.
On the 500 series, it needs a rinse aid refill about once a month using it once a day to once every other day.
I’d have taken it back, done and dusted. Make them feel the pain.
That’s horrible.
One more time I’m reminded of Unlicensed Bread (C. Doctorow).
BTW the title made me think of car parts. Bosch sell all sorts of stuff.
Oh! The IOT toaster, perhaps a really good analogy! That was a good read and fitting for this situation.
When was it published? 2019/2020 ?? Well, took just 5 years for the corporate greed to get on par.
What made the story so captivating for me is how dystopian yet extremely close to present day reality it is.
Of course that’s what he does: takes already existing situations and weaves them into something eye-opening.
it’s really prescient - one of the stories is people terrorizing healthcare execs for their dead loved ones.
Another one for the CAT wiki. EDIT: It’s already there
This system mandates that users connect their dishwasher to Wi‑Fi and register for a Home Connect account in order to access essential functions
lol what the fuck
Makes me want to buy one specifically to return it
I’m driving a 2007 Citroën. I hope I can find a car without OTA updates when it’s time to upgrade.
I really don’t want a bait-and-switch where I start to get ads on the dashboard at every intersection.
I just buy second hand cars.
Yeah, me, too.
But it feels like all cars made in the last decade have connectivity. I’m not a fan.
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I mostly agree with you, but my ford had a software update (USB not ota) that added Android auto like a year after I bought it. That’s about the only update I’d tolerate
Get the dump stove that’s in the corner of many appliance stores. It looks like it fell out of the fifties but the simple design is much better.
yup. I hate the ‘soft touch’ capacitive sensors on everything now… utter garbage. give me solid chunks of plastic and metal opening and closing solenoids for that satisfying clunk that tells you the machine is going.
i wonder what price point you could hit with 1950’s technology, but without the thick steel… then i wonder about loss of efficiency and safety. im sure someone know of a brand threading this needle in like brazil or somewhere already.
Speed Queen brand still exists and is mostly what you’re describing.
good point, except aiming for a low price point.
1.5 hours to wash dishes for 5!? Are they a family of snails?
New dishwashers are all slow because of energy/water savings. When I need dishes done fast I use the 60 minute setting that runs everything at full blast.
He’s talking about how Jeff said he needs a dishwasher because hand washing dishes takes 1.5 hours a day otherwise (and is a waste of water and energy)
He must have a fucking ton of dishes. We get a few mugs and bowls every year as Christmas gifts. I have to do periodic cleansing of gift dishes. Lately though, I tell my wife, okay, we got this as a gift. Now we have to put it in the cabinet where it belongs and we have to throw away something else. Do you want to keep this or not bcz we do not have any more space. It usually goes to the trash.
