Smart Refrigerator/Dishwasher/flexible load Suggestions

Hi all,

We are looking at getting some new smart appliances for lab equipment and I am wondering if anyone had any suggestions. The smart appliances would act as flexible loads within a household to consume electrical energy when required.

The first item which we want to test out would be a smart fridge. I have come across the Samsung Family Hub fridge for example which seems to be a nice out of box solution to integrate in the SmartThings ecosystem but unsure about openHAB.

The main requirements for the refrigerator would be temperature control and on/off control. It would be to allow us to shift electrical loads during the day which would be nice. For a washing machine on/off control and then if there are any fancy settings for certain washes that could be useful too.

It would be nice to start with “out of the box” solutions instead of fitting sensors/switches to existing non smart appliances but all suggestions welcome, especially if you have experince integrating the devices with openHAB and all went smoothly.

Are you sure this is the right approach for lab equipment ? I’m suspecting an XY problem here so please state what you actually want to do with these devices.
I’d guess a) regular lab equipment usage will not resemble a typical household’s and b) if you want to “play” with loads to simulate various scenarios you will be way better off with a more flexible solution based on plugs and sensors. Note these you can control from OH to override or simulate usage.

Hi Markus, thanks for your reply.

So the aim of this lab equipment would be to test/investigate some out of the box solutions. In previous projects when we have gone to home owners to install equipment the building owners where not to keen on “experimental” products (even OH got refused in one project and we had to go with SmartThings) for example rewiring to fit WiFi/Z-Wave switches in appliances to make them “smart”. An example project would be this one here I found online which would be perfectly fine for a lab environment but if we done this to most peoples fridges they would not approve which is unfortunate but understandable.

We have sensors/smart plugs at the moment but it would be nice to see what else is out there which comes out of the box with devices. There a few devices which call themselves “smart” but the smartness is ordering the shopping through a touch screen on a fridge, not really interested in these. We are more interested in regulating temperature, monitoring electrical loads (we have sensors installed for this but would be nice to get individual load profiles of devices) and any other controls we can get our hands on in a device. The idea eventually would be to have a living lab in the university with a multitude of smart devices to test.

So to sum up we already have devices/sensors to smartify devices, this is looking at out of the box solutions users are not as uneasy about in there homes that provide a flexible load in the home.

You could check the Chinese Xiaomi Miija ecosystem, they have a couple of appliances like humifiers.
In Germany, there’s a line of ovens, washing machines etc from Bosch-Siemens Hausgeräte and Miele. BSH support the HomeConnect protocol, and Miele has their own (don’t recall ATM).

I think you should at least state where you’re located, and what sort of appliance you’re looking for, maybe then you’ll get more suggestions.

But the underlying problem is that there is no smart home controller standard on the market so every household appliance even if smart is designed to work on its own in the first place, and not as a slave to whoseever controller.

I’d be interested in knowing about such devices too, as I’m selling an openHAB based energy management system, too.
I haven’t seen a smart fridge yet.I read Samsung has something but not sure.
My own beer fridge is openHAB-controlled but ON/OFF only through a plug, based on outside (!) temperature forecast.
Granted that only works for the specific use case “i want my beer to be available cold on hot days”. Then again it works even with a 20yr old fridge.

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You could look at the following…

  • HomeConnect (supports both Bosch and Siemens appliances) EDIT: and Gaggenau and Neff [Discover | Home Connect]
  • Miele appliances
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Thanks for the replys @mstormi and @AndrewFG,

I’m located in Ireland so quite flexible, its probably the same market that is in Germany. The appliances would be:

  1. Fridges
  2. Freezers
  3. Ovens
  4. Kettles
  5. Heaters/Heating Systems
  6. Dishwashers
  7. Washing Machines

I have heard/seen a lot about this, is it easily integrated with OpenHAB from your experience?

Have you got any website/information on this? I’d be interested to have a read about it.

Is there a better use case? :laughing:

This is what I have in terms of “smart” devices so far, be warned they say you can have control of devices but I have no personal experience with these devices and I am definitely not saying they can be integrated with OH, it is just a rough list to get started to see whats out there which may be helpful for you.

Some of the websites are based in Ireland but the attached models im sure can be found most places in the world, the likes of Siemens, Bosch and Samsung.

Feel free to continue to add suggestions to the thread, this list is definitely not finished!

Fridge/Freezer

Dishwashers

Kettles

Ovens

There’s an OH binding and a large thread on it so best search for that.

Sure. It’s targeting PV and heatpump owners in the first place but can also postpone your washing and dish washer run just using a plug socket so it’s applicable in all housing environments.
German only but you can of course use a translator: Effizient : Energiemanagement » Storm.house

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Yes. The binding was only adopted officially as part of OpenHAB in the last builds v3.1.x Home Connect - Bindings | openHAB and it has been used overall since 2018 see thread here. I myself have been using it since about 2 years and I can confirm it works very well.

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The HomeConnect binding will handle all your “smart” Bosch and Siemens cooking devices (as well as their fridges, freezers, dishwashers, coffee machines, hobs, washing machines, hoods etc.)

Thanks for that, looking at the channels for the Home Connect Binding it does seem very versatile, the API for home connect seems very detailed too.

Can I ask what devices have you integrated so far with it?

Why don’t you post your question in the HomeConnect thread where others will see it.

Personally I have a Bosch Combi Oven and a Bosch Main Oven on it.

IMHO if the appliance says HomeConnect on the sticker, then the binding will support it. And if appliances come out with new features, the developer is pretty fast in adding support.

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