Smart Washing Machine

Hardware Home Automation
1

Is there any recommendation for an available smart washing machine?
I like the Samsung models with WLAN and App-Control - but has anyone tried to get the state in openHAB?

2

As always most proprietary solutions do not offer open interfaces. There is a Miele binding, no personal experience: http://docs.openhab.org/addons/bindings/miele/readme.html

Also whoever is reading this and just want’s to know “Is the washing machine finished?”: Washing Machine State Machine

3

Just bought a dryer from miele. The current Binding does not work with it.

Thomas

4

For the current state it’s OK to work with power measurement to get the state.
But I would prefer to get more details as “when it’s finished?”

(And to be honest: I’m not interested in installing another app when I try on the other hand to combine everything else in openHAB)

5

Hello!

You could get “when it’s finished” date and time pretty easily using a simple rule. When power usage drops below certain threshold and the current state is appropriate (i.e. Washing), write date and time to an OH item.

Best regards,
Davor

6

that works only, if you always use the same washing-program?!?

7

Why would it work only with the same washing-program? Lets say your washing machine draws approximately 1000 W while washing. After washing is finished, it drops to, let say 10 W - LED indicators and similar stand-by stuff still draw some power. That will allow you to change the state to finished, but, also, allow you to write date and time (exact date and time when power dropped below, lets say 20 W). It is not connected to a program, but to a power usage. You could firstly test power usage when machine is on stand-by, and then use that value as indicator of changed state - which will then trigger writing of date and time too.

Edit: Maybe I misunderstood your initial post. Did you mean “When it’s finished” or “When will it finish”?

Best regards,
Davor

8

Yes - I meant “When will it finish”.
And I noticed, that my washing machine doesn’t need constantly power but sometimes drops to <10 W even while washing…
It would be possible to try to find a good pattern - but I would prefer a “real” data connection…

Michael

9

Hey @davorf, that’s exactly what the “Washing Machine State Machine” does but I can understand @mashborn’s interest in a truly connected washing machine. I’d also be interested in a solution (for the future). @Dibbler42 did you look into the problem or contact the original author of the binding?

10

Hello!

Those power drops could be solved using timer or expire binding (I’m guessing periods of these drops are ranged from a few seconds, to, maybe, a minute). Regarding “When will it finish”, I don’t see any solution except using machine’s official API/SDK, if it has one, to get that information directly from machine itself.

Best regards,
Davor

11

Hello @ThomDietrich!

Of course there are benefits of using info directly from the machine itself. I was just suggesting a solution (but based on the wrong assumption/misinformation). I know your topic covers this exact use case, I was just trying to explain how it works :slight_smile:

Best regards,
Davor

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12

If your washing machine has a display and shows the estimated running time, it could be possible to check this display by camera a do a little character recognition (a similar idea to https://www.kompf.de/cplus/emeocv.html)…

Andreas

13

If you are looking for hard wired solution check out GE Green Bean. It works with most newer GE appliances.

14

If I’d need a new washing machine I would look for Bosch / Siemens machines with “Home Connect” functionality.
They are WiFi connected and have an interface to IFTTT. Maybe something can be worked out to integrate into openHAB with Home Connect or IFTTT.

Bernd

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15

I haven’t looked into connected washing machines, but I don’t think for myself that the premium they’d likely charge would be worth the data that’s available.

Another possibility for you is how I do it. Using the MySensors library, I have a node in the laundry room with a sound sensor. When there has been no sound for 90 seconds, it essentially sends an OFF command to the “washing machine running” switch through MQTT. I then get a notification through Pushover when that is complete. It doesn’t give full status information like which part of the cycle it is doing, but it gives “done” information, and that’s all we need at our house!

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16

I use the power monitor solution, using a Z-Wave power plug, and it works great for all programs on our washing machine as it goes into standby when it finishes and uses < 1W which always signals end of cycle. I use persistence to get the max for the last minute is less than 1W.
This is really all you can do with a washing machine as loading of the thing means remote triggering is much less useful. (Ours has a delay start)

I believe this is much better than having a actual interface as it will work for years with my appliance and have much less security issues. If you look at how much any IOT type things gets updated after it’s release and your expected lifespan of your home appliance they really don’t match up.

1 Like
17

Hi all, digging up an old topic and going off topic, but it’s the first hit on Google when looking for a way to start my machine using OpenHab: I have just managed to start my washing machine via a Http post request to the SmartThings API, which means it should also be possible for an enthousiastic person to create this in OpenHAB (or perhaps it’s even already possible using the SmartThings bindings, I’m not sure).

Once you know the process is fairly simple provided you have some knowledge on how to work with APIs:

  1. Install the official Samsung SmartThings app - I’ve done this on my iPhone, hopefully Android works the same.
  2. Get your washing machine online and connected to SmartThings using the app/your washing machine manual (this may be easy or a challenge in and of itself)
  3. Once you can see the machine in your app, create a ‘Scene’ in the app with one action, which is “Action → control device → [select your washer] → Start Cycle” (this is a guesstimated translation as my app is in Dutch, it should be self evident)
  4. using your samsung account also linked to the app, generate an API token with full access to Scenes (note: Scenes, Rules sounds the same but is different) on SmartThings. Add a little smartness to your things.
  5. Get a list of all scenes for the account as per here: API | SmartThings Developers and note the Scene ID of the scene you crated at step 2
  6. Setup a washing program as you’d like it to be on the machine itself and press the ‘smart control’ button to allow remote operation (probably you can also set up the program remotely/automatically, but that is beyond the scope of this example). In my case the machine locks the door, and after 10-20 seconds plays a jingle when it connects to wifi.
  7. Execute the scene via a POST request as explained here using the sceneId obtained in step 5 API | SmartThings Developers - this should return a ‘{“status”:“success”}’ response and the machine should start.

I tried this using a ‘rule’ first, as having a ‘scene’ which starts a washer sounds strange - but Rules from the app don’t work and ‘scenes’ do.

Perhaps there is also a more direct way to tell the machine to start using the ‘device commands’ API calls, but I wasn’t able to find any proper documentation on a ‘start washing machine’ command API | SmartThings Developers (I could find working API bindings for e.g. setting soundbar volume levels, which I succesfully tested, but not for the washing machine per se)

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18

Hello!

I’m not sure if that’s what you are looking for, but first thing I can think of is using executeCommandLine in OpenHAB rules to call HTTP POST via curl command line app.

Best regards,
Davor

1 Like