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Hardware

Your Washer is Calling and the Dryer is on IM 144

Posted by Zonk from the make-the-dryer-stop-calling-me-names dept.
netbuzz writes "Laundry Time, an eight-week pilot program from the Internet Home Alliance, begins next week with three Atlanta families and the technology and services of Microsoft, HP, Panasonic, Proctor & Gamble and Whirlpool. The idea is to allow family members to receive alerts and control certain laundry functions from their PCs, cell phones and TV sets, presumably so they can spend more time with their PCs, cell phones and TV sets." I am all for tech for the sake of tech, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the signs of the Apocalypse Nostradamus prognosticated.
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Your Washer is Calling and the Dryer is on IM More

Your Washer is Calling and the Dryer is on IM

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  • Your soiled shorts, CowboyNeal Underoos and Ring-around-the-Collar are now on full view on the internet.

    • I can't wait to have a look at some of the SNMP MIBs for my washer and dryer.

      Whirlpool-washer.MIB::maxRotateSpeed.0=250
      Whirlpool-washer.MIB::currentLoadWeight.0=12lbs
      Whirlpool-washer.MIB.errorStatus="Need More Bleach!!!"

  • Washine Machine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheStonepedo ( 885845 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:51PM (#15715283) Homepage Journal
    A lot of people use laundromats. For those who have machines in their homes, they're already saving a lot of time to be able to start the thing, walk off, and return when it's done. There are audible alerts for washers and dryers already, and a majority of the time spent dealing with washing machines is spent loading and unloading. I'd rather see a program that can check my oven to ensure it's off or, if set to go at a certain time confirms its action remotely, when I'm away from home.
    • I could see this being useful if you could set the washing machine from work to make a horrible screaming noise until your spouse/kids put a load in. You would get laundry done AND your family would appreciate that you're thinking about them.

    • Re:Washine Machine (Score:5, Interesting)

      by eln ( 21727 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:01PM (#15715323)
      Whenever I go on a long trip, I am always somewhat nervous that I'm going to return and find my house burned to the ground because I left the oven on or something silly like that. My appliances emailing me every so often to let me know they're still in working order but turned off might be useful. Or maybe I should just see a psychiatrist.

      • Re:Washine Machine (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I turn my range off at the fuse box when I go on trips. The controls are touch activated and there is a very outside chance that my one of my cats turning it on.

        Also, get an alarm system like Brinks. They'll call you (and the fire dept/police) if your house is on fire or someone breaks in.
      • There's the inexcapable problem, however, that the very appliance you're worrying about has to be ON for it to notify you, and therefore the chance of your washing machine spontaniously combusting is still very much present.

        Unfortunatley, I don't see this "did I turn the oven off" problem being solved any time soon. There's always going to be SOMETHING plugged in for you to worry about, be it air condition, alarm clock or automatic can opener.

        I propose, instead, that we learn to develop our social networks
        • nah, just turn off the gas, water and throw the main breaker before you leave. then you dont have to worry about a thing.

        • Unfortunatley, I don't see this "did I turn the oven off" problem being solved any time soon. There's always going to be SOMETHING plugged in for you to worry about, be it air condition, alarm clock or automatic can opener.

          Ahh, but I don't worry about my computer starting the house on fire nearly as much as I worry about a crusted-over dryer lint trap, grease covered oven or stovetop, or forgotten iron. Perhaps I should, it does draw over 200W, but it also has fans and the ability to panic power-off sh

        • I propose, instead, that we learn to develop our social networks rather than our electronic ones, and get to know our neighbors; if the house is on fire, THEY'RE the ones that will be calling the fire department, and they're the ones that I want calling out the neighborhood to battle the blaze with their hoses and pails.

          Unless you live out of the neighbors' sight like I do. I'm fairly rural, and unless the house explodes or is hit by lightning, by the time you see there's a problem it's way too late.
        • You can put your clothes in, and an online system will let you view how much time they have left on them via your wireless internet connection. Nothing new here.

          Yes, internet notification systems make more sense for laundrmats than for private homes. Back in the day, I used to hate hanging out in the laundremat. I'd go out or home and keep an eye on the clock. If you don't get back in time on a busy day, your clothes get dumped somewhere.

          Doing laundry at home is already so much more convenient, I'm not

          • However, I would like a system that could wash and dry my clothes without me transfering the clothes, and if I'm lucky, it would even fold and hang them. It's the manual steps I don 't like.

            When my wife and I were looking at washers and dryers, we saw one that could, in fact, wash and dry the clothes in the same machine. We seriously considered buying it for both the space saving and convience aspects. However, as we researched more on it, we found it that it really sucked. It washed clothes in the typica

      • I too think this would be a useful feature. I'm the type of person who doesn't do laundry until I completely run out of clean clothes, so I usually end up with several loads of laundry to do. As such, laundry becomes a day-long event which prevents me from leaving the house. If I could operate the laundry machine remotely or atleast know when the laundry is done, I could go out in between putting in new loads without worrying about forgetting to take the laundry out of the dryer or leaving it sitting in the
        • There's this neat little invention called a watch. It has this uncanny ability to tell you the current time. Combine that with some simple math skills (say a load of laundry takes 45 minutes. Current time is 11:15 = load will be done at 12:00) and presto. Want to get really fancy? Use that countdown timer on a cheap Timex Ironman.
    • Yes, a lot of people do use laundromats. I can see it now, some bored teen decides to hack his sister's laundry in the laundromat and set it to "Extra Dark Wash, Extra Hot, Hot Rinse, No Spin Dry" just because he can.
    • If you've ever had the fortune to spend time in a room that's far away from the dryer, it's a useful thing. Of course, when I lived in my parents' house, the washer/dryer was right next door to my room, so it was trivial.

      However, an audible alert isn't going to cut it if you're more than two or three rooms over and have the stereo going. They aren't the loud-ass buzzers that they used to be!

      I wouldn't mind being able to check on the status of the dryer remotely. This is especially useful in those dryers
      • I forget about it. Usually when I do laundry, I'm also programming. For some odd reason, I get great ideas loading laundry into the washer. I guess it cleanses my mind. Problem is I forget to put them in the dryer or to check on them. Worse yet, sometimes I play enemy territory and who wants to check on clothes when there is 3 minutes left and you haven't got the truck moving yet on goldrush.
      • However, an audible alert isn't going to cut it if you're more than two or three rooms over and have the stereo going. They aren't the loud-ass buzzers that they used to be!

        And they certainly aren't persistent. It goes off once, and if you don't hear it, tough. Not like cell phones with missed calls left in work cubicles beeping every three minutes, or a microwave oven with a cooling cup of coffee left in it.

        I've had an idea for awhile. It came to me while in college and seeing people using those plastic

    • Mr. Coffee (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Dionysos Taltos ( 980090 )
      Absolutely! I can't tell you how many times my wife and I exchange phone calls to ensure someone remembered to turn off the coffee maker before leaving for work. Having this technology for ovens, stoves and coffee makers would be more useful than for laundry machines.

      To further what the parent post said about time saving and laundry machines, give me laundry machines which can change loads and fold clothes, that would be a true time-saving feature for today's laundry machines. Anything else is just "bell

    • Actually, I've already had a chance to use a program similar to this, and find it fairly useful. Laundryview [laundryview.com] was made available to my campus recently – it's great for a shared environment, like a dorm laundry room, or any other laundromat, where you have to worry about whether machines are free before you lug all your clothes down there. LV also lets you know if your clothes are done yet – in theory you could just keep track of the time, knowing e.g. it takes 40 mins/load, but this gets tricky
    • Am I the only one a bit tired of large networks being used for small systems? Why are you hooking your dryer up to the Internet to send an instant message to MSN/ICQ/AOL/Yahoo/Google to come to your computer? Isn't that silly?

      First, a dryer takes a fixed amount of time. If you can't estimate 40 minutes, seek professional help.

      Second, the buzzer was always a good method. Many newer washer/dryers have remote devices like a pager that wirelessly buzzes you when it's done. A useful feature for those in big

  • Shocking alert.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by bingo_cannon ( 779085 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:53PM (#15715288)
    Closet empty..time to do laundry!! Nothing calls for action than this!!
  • "TV"? What's that?

  • from the article.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ShaniaTwain ( 197446 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:55PM (#15715298) Homepage
    Of course, these Laundry Time partners are serious companies not in the habit of flushing R&D dollars down the drain.
     
    ..Its called marketing. Put a hare-brained idea out there and get people writing articles mentioning your company name.

    • ..Its called marketing. Put a hare-brained idea out there and get people writing articles mentioning your company name.

      I'd call it bad marketing. In Microsoft's case in particular, it just shows how feckless they have become. They can't get their latest OS out the door on time, and their browser is a giant security black hole, but they're on top of the demand for net-enabled dishwashing? Pathetic.

    • Wrong name (Score:3, Informative)

      by dereference ( 875531 )
      Its called marketing. Put a hare-brained idea out there and get people writing articles mentioning your company name.

      ...Unless, that is, they get your company name [pg.com] wrong! It's Procter & Gamble (not Proctor & Gamble). TFA gets it wrong as well, but that's probably why the company has mostly been using just P&G lately. Not that it matters much; we've apparently degenerated into a society that doesn't value spelling [slashdot.org] anyway.

      • And of course, P&G is the largest consumer goods company on the planet. Toothpaste, soap, washing powder, etc, etc. etc, Just like Miscrosoft, they can afford to blow a few million on a hare-brained scheme, on the off chance tha t it will be profitable down the road.

    • 80's or early 90's ?? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *

      ..Its called marketing. Put a hare-brained idea out there and get people writing articles mentioning your company name.

      Back in the late 80's or early 90's a friend of mine was seeking out home appliances which had some sort of network ability already. They were pretty hard to find, but the one which amazed me was a toaster. These were probably sometihng meant for an early theme of home network and information and control of appliances, but IIRC these had an EIA or sommat specification already worked o

      • I wish my washer and dryer would IM me or text message me when the cycle is done. Although the dryer has a buzzer, it's in a back room behind my garage, so unless I happen to be in the kitchen or the garage, I never hear it. In fact, I have no idea what the buzzer on it sounds like. The washer doesn't have any sort of alarm, it just stops, so I have even less chance of knowing that it has finished, unless I time it.

        I know the idea sounds silly...but it'd be great for a situation like mine (which, granted

  • Cool! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:56PM (#15715301) Homepage Journal

    This is so freakin' awesome! Talk about a product everyone has been waiting for with baited breath! I know I'll throw down some serious cash for *that* technology!

    Hah! And people say Microsoft is losing its touch.

    • Geek walks into a bar and sits next to a pretty girl. Tries to pick her up by exclaming "Hey, my washing machine just emailed me!" Pathetic.

  • Do not want. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:56PM (#15715303)
    > Your washer's calling and the dryer's on IM

    hotpoint14: I take off your pants, slowly, and gently massage them in my soapy warmth.
    maytagman: Oh I like that baby, after pretreating with detergent, I put in my robe and wizard hat.
    hotpoint14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
    maytagman: Oh **** damn I gotta write down your names or something

    • hotpoint14: I take off your pants, slowly, and gently massage them in my soapy warmth.
      maytagman: Oh I like that baby, after pretreating with detergent, I put in my robe and wizard hat.
      hotpoint14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
      maytagman: Do you want to wash my mouth out with bleach?

  • PHASE two RFID integration (Score:5, Funny)

    by Starteck81 ( 917280 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:58PM (#15715312)
    ... in other news scientist are using RFID embedded socks with RFID enabled dryers to solve one of the greatest mysteries of our time. Where do all the missing socks go?

  • Reason 10 for why we need IPv6 (Score:5, Funny)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:58PM (#15715313) Homepage Journal
    10. Not only are there billions of Chinese citizens who will be on the Net, now the washers and dryers want to IM each other.

  • Use case: the Shared Laundry Room (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Thursday July 13, 2006 @06:58PM (#15715314) Homepage Journal
    I can think of one, and only one case where this would be more useful than a simple audio alarm: the shared laundry room.

    If you've ever lived in a college dorm, or in an apartment complex that provides a communal laundry room (and extracts cash from you, either in the form of quarters or a reloadable card), SOP is to put your clothes in the washer, go back to your room/apartment/etc., then come back when they're done. Chances are you've encountered the fatal flaw: When your laundry is ready to go into the dryer, someone else's clothes have often been sitting there, dry, for 10 minutes, and it'll be another half hour before they remember to pop in and take them out.

    The low-tech solution for the one with clothes in the dryer is this: Check your watch when you start the dryer, do a little math, and come back in 45 minutes. If you're really worried you'll forget, set an alarm. You've probably got a kitchen timer at worst, and if you're reading Slashdot, chances are your watch has 25 alarm settings anyway.

    The low-tech solution for the one waiting to use the dryer is to open it up and move the other person's clothes out of the way. Ironically, the solution to lack of consideration by one person is... lack of consideration by the other. Which can escalate into a cycle of anger, and neighbor feuds, and next thing you know there'll be a neutral zone and Jimmy Carter will be coming in to make sure that your complex doesn't break into open warfare. *ahem* Sorry about that...

    Anyway, something like this could work as a remote "Your laundry's done, doofus, get it the hell out of the way" alert. You could use single-use pagers like restaurants do for reservations, but this way you don't have to worry about range, or (since people are using their own phones) someone walking off with the pager after they're done.

    Pity that the one place it would be useful is also the least likely place for it to be implemented.
    • Yep. At my university (Case Western Reserve), we have washers and dryers in every dorm that are connected to the internet so that one can check on their progress in minutes to end of cycle on a webpage, one page to each dorm. One can also check to see which machines, if any, are free. In theory, they're also supposed to email/text message us when they're done, but they never seen to implement that. I think the company that makes the systems (I forget the name) does the same type of thing to a lot of college
    • Students are shifty. Unless you know and trust everyone who lives in your dorms and the other dorms that use your laundry room, don't expect your clothes to be there when you return. Nobody's gonna steal your underpants unless they're really creepy, but if you leave decent-looking clothes from popular brands sitting in public laundry rooms without security cameras, somebody is gonna lift your stuff. I know most of my neighbors in the condos where I live now, and even though I have a washer/dryer in mine
      • I have had all my red t-shirts disappear from an apartment laundry room, and I'd always picked up my laundry promptly. Once I'd noticed I had none left (start of next sports season) I never left my laundry unattended in that building again.

        Which is why the very low-tech version of affixing a simple magnet with your address or phone number to the machines you're using doesn't work in practice either. You wouldn't want some stranger suffering from Laundromat Rage harrassing you by phone and knowing where yo
    • That would've been great back when I was in halls. Especially due to the fact that the driers never even told you how long they'd take except for a single digit LED display that lit up part way through and started a countdown that didn't relate to any unit of time in the known universe...

    • Re:Use case: the Shared Laundry Room (Score:5, Insightful)

      by erice ( 13380 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:38PM (#15715506) Homepage
      The low-tech solution for the one waiting to use the dryer is to open it up and move the other person's clothes out of the way. Ironically, the solution to lack of consideration by one person is... lack of consideration by the other. Which can escalate into a cycle of anger, and neighbor feuds, and next thing you know there'll be a neutral zone and Jimmy Carter will be coming in to make sure that your complex doesn't break into open warfare. *ahem* Sorry about that...

      The even lower tech solution is for all concerned to chill out and accept that rabid pursuit of exclusivity does not work when resources are shared.

      The one waiting should check his watch and come back in 5 minutes.
      If, after 5 minutes, the dryer is still full, the person waiting should remove said clothes from dryer. The person who shows up to find their clothes removed from the dryer should know that they failed to keep on top of their laundary and perhaps even apologize to the person who had to move their clothing asside.

      In 20 years of sharing laundary facilities with friends and strangers I have encountered exactly one person who got upset about this policy. I still consider him an anti-social dweeb.

    • extracts cash from you, either in the form of quarters or a reloadable card...

      The low-tech solution for the one with clothes in the dryer is this: Check your watch when you start the dryer, do a little math, and come back in 45 minutes. If you're really worried you'll forget, set an alarm. You've probably got a kitchen timer at worst, and if you're reading Slashdot, chances are your watch has 25 alarm settings anyway.

      *looks at student ID...*
      *looks at cell phone alarm log...*

      You know, I just got o
    • Wait a minute. You describe the low-tech solution (using a timer), then a high-tech solution that does exactly the same thing, that is, notifying you that your items are done. Since the high-tech solution offers no extra functionality (and more opportunities for failure), why not just use a timer? When you first move in, arrive to transfer/pick up your clothes a few minutes early so you can find out exactly how long the washer/dryer takes, then set a timer in the future.

      I really hate unwarranted application
    • Some of the newer-fangled buildings now have sophistimicated clothes washers and dryers which require computerized cards to make them function. You get a "credit card" from the building management (inconvenient if your work hours preclude you from dropping in between 10AM and 4PM). Then you load the clothes card from another card (debit or credit) with whatever amount you want. Next, you follow the "simple instructions" printed on the card and on the washer and/or dryer.

      I can tell you from personal experi
    • Looks like Speed Queen has something [speedqueen.com] like what you've described. Except more complicated, and very proprietary.

    • The low-tech solution for the one with clothes in the dryer is this

      Not so much with the drier as the washer, but last time I was in an apartment with a shared laundry room, my low-tech solution was that the washer took 45 minutes (this was in Switzerland, so it was *exactly* 45 minutes). One DVD episode of TWW [nbc.com] takes 43 minutes, with credits at either end. So put laundry on, head upstairs, watch TWW, head downstairs, and it would be shedding the very last of the spin cycle momentum.

      And we'll gently pass over

    • How about the ignorant jerks who happily pop open your running washer/dryer to 'check' if there's anything in there. Of course, the machine will happily tick down its time but not restart unless the button is hit again, meaning when you come back in 20-40 minutes your coins are still eaten and your laundry is still wet.

      Give me a wifi connection to the machine and the ability to catch a picture of whomever is opening my machine so I can be sure to add some tye-dye to his next load...

  • Are the first things I do in the morning. I'd LOVE it, if the kettle would send me an instant message, in addition to just quietly turning off.

  • This could be quite useful (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AstrumPreliator ( 708436 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:07PM (#15715352)
    Despite the usual "this is for lazy people" comments I can actually see this as being very useful in many contexts. I live in an apartment right now and my room mate is always using the washer and dryer. I usually end up doing the loads of laundry she already has in so I can get in a load or two and have clothes for the next day. Coupled with the fact that our dryer is terrible (the time limit is 160 minutes for drying, this usually doesn't fully dry clothes) I could definitely see a benefit to controlling the washer/dryer from somewhere else. It would also be helpful in a household with many people, dorms, etc...
  • This reminds me of the coffee maker [com.com] that uses SMS technology to turn on.

  • SOUNDS LIKE "SMART HOUSE" TO ME (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:12PM (#15715375)
    It is truly amazing how bad ideas keep being recycled. In the late 1980's there was the "Smart House" initiative that would allow you to remotly control your appliances from your PC or from your phone. The vendors behind it promised the ability to control your thermostat, your oven, stove dishwasher, lights even your gas grill (hopefully the grill lights when you turn it on). Several demonstration houses were made and a lot of applince and industrial companies spent a lot of money on it. The technology worked great... but...

    Guess what.... It was a dud! The idea is still a dud. Unless you have a self loading washer or dryer, a stove that gets out the food and cooks it for you there isn't mutch advantage here. So what if you are notified when the appliance is finished, unless it puts away the clothes or serves the food, you still have to pay the appliance a visit to finish the job.

    Perhaps a more reasonable approach would be to have a bluetooth control that might allow you to remotly put in detergent or softener, but I'm not sure this has any apeal either. I put this in the same category as the flying cars "Popular Mechanics" promises are coming every 10-15 years.
    • In the late 1980's there was the "Smart House" initiative that would allow you to remotly control your appliances from your PC

      This idea was scrapped when it was discovered that spilling water on your keyboard caused the Smart House to gain sentience and try and steal your girlfriend by composing techno-ballads.
  • ...unless one of those devices starts calling themselves the "Post-Dated Check Loan".... then, I'll freak.

  • Yawn! Wake me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:18PM (#15715403) Journal
    Wake me up when the machine can collect the dirty clothes, wash them, dry them, and fold/hang them. Until then, I'm staying at mom's.
    • Wake me up when the machine can collect the dirty clothes, wash them, dry them, and fold/hang them. Until then, I'm staying at mom's.

      Your mom called, she and the washing machine are playing Halo II on X-Box live, do your own damned laundry! ;-)
  • I for one, welcome our comunicating appliance overlords...

    But seriously, Who here hasn't been distracted by a late night tech, coding, or gaming session and forgot about the laundry that you needed to do so you could go to work with something clean on?

    What about the fact that the sooner you get your clothes out of the dryer the less wrinkles you have.

    I think this is an awesome idea that is a little late in my opinion.
    • Actually my laundry machine should have a 'parent of a teenager' mode, where it would just nag me long enough to make sure I really unload it. Already too many times I forgot the laundry for longer periods than is olfactory favorable (just to end up restarting the same laundry again, ugh).

  • Hi, This is your washing machine... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cherita Chen ( 936355 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:21PM (#15715419) Homepage
    Hello I am a very wealthy washing machine in the small african country of Uganda. My father recently passed away and left me $200,000,000 USD. I am seeking your help in transfering....

    C1al15 for cheap......

    I just wanted you to know that you can recieve a home mortgage of up to $453,000 for as little as $898 a month...

  • Let's start predicting the malware around it! (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:25PM (#15715441)
    Because one thing's for sure, if there's some harm possibly done, it will be done! Now, as long as those remote-controlling only allows you to check for states (like, is the oven off or the laundry done), there's little harm to be done. It starts getting dangerous when you can remotely control their functions.

    Imagine a remote controlled oven where your ex knows the keys to turn it on, possibly burning your apartment to the ground. Remote controlled locks that faciliates burglaries. A stereo connected to the internet playing "My heart will go on" at full volume for hours (because you're not home).

    There are certain developments in technology I simply do not need...
  • Around the house, the same rules apply as in computing: minimize complexity. I want to get the job done as easily and fast as possible. Complexity can be reduced by keeping separate things separate. If something fails, I can pinpoint the source. The failure of one item should not influence the other. A hard drive crash still should allow you to make a telephone call or get some milk from the fridge or do the laundry. I don't want the light of the rooms be controlled by the same machine, which is used to pl
    • That's a bad idea. Control the lights and whatnot within WoW, and you'll end up wiping your raid because instead of healing the main tank, you turned off the kitchen light.
  • Remind me to add whirlpool2940 to my buddy list.
  • I am all for tech for the sake of tech, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the signs of the Apocalypse Nostradamus prognosticated.


    "Hallucinating flying windows over water in metal boxes;

    Invisible messages are lost with the socks;

    Floods of water destroy all life;

    As circles of glass turn blue and die"

  • That Hacker shrunk my clothes! (Score:3, Funny)

    by MattS423 ( 987689 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @07:34PM (#15715489)
    This sounds like something for hackers to get ahold of to me. "Darn it, i took down my firewall for 1 second and I wound up with 15 pairs of really, really small underwear"
  • Proctor & Gamble? I think P&G will be over those perverts with a brandname suit in no time. :p
  • Are they sure what they are doing ? I can just imagine it now...

    Dark and light clothes have been inserted together.
    The wash program has performed an illegal operation.
                      Cancel Abort Retry

  • I am in college and the dorm I live in has the washers and dryers setup to connect to the network for years and there is a website you can go to on the local intranet that shows which machines are currently broken, which machines are empty, and which machines are in use. For those in use it also shows how much time is left until they are done. The two problems with this in my dorm is that the website often goes down (the server they have it on is not the best I guess and they are bad at keeping track of i
  • Soon washers and dryers will be having organized revolts. This may not turn out well.

    Time to go actually read the article...

  • Real automation in washer/dryers (Score:4, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @08:19PM (#15715707) Homepage

    All that user intervention is silly. What you want is a combination washer/dryer [lgwasherdryer.com]. These were first offered in 1958 [plan59.com], and they're still around. No need to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer. The latest models even dispose of the lint down the drain.

    This is way ahead of having to communicate with the thing remotely.

    Another idea that seems to have disappeared from washing machines is a soap tank. You just fill one tank with Liquid Tide, another tank with fabric softener, and it does the rest. That was tried in the 1960s.

    Some of the more advanced machines, like the Maytag Neptune, sense the dirt content of the drain water and the water content of the dryer exhaust air to decide automatically how much washing and drying is needed. The Neptune can deal with an out-of-balance condition by itself, too.

    Another useful facility would be to have the dryer do an extra few turns every few minutes after it is done, to prevent wrinkling.

    • I have one of those LG Combined washer/dryer things and they are a great washer but a crappy dryer. Rather than use hot air like most dryers, they use water somehow - In a way this is nice because they don't exhaust humid air into the room (assuming you can't vent to the outside somehow) - but it takes about 3 hours to dry a load and uses more water than you save by using the more efficient front-loader style machine. Also you can't start washing the next load until the drying is finished. Unfortunatel
  • Is some function on my phone that tells me whether or not I remember to lock-up the house when I'm halfway to wherever... I can't say I give a damn about controlling my washing machine from the toilet in the train station, but I hate worrying all day about if my door is secured.
  • it would be nice to get a text message on my cellphone or an IM when my laundry is done at the community laundry room. I hate having to go check it. There is no reliable amount of time you can wait to know it will be done, and I don't want to leave my laundry sitting around too long; Underwear gnomes and all.
  • There are those days when you put the cloths into the washer and you don't go back for a day or two, or you doing in the AM and then you rush out to work and don't try until the evening...

    BUT when you in a rush and you want to do the full wash/dry cycle and you don't want to sit in front of the machines in basement or "laundry center" of your abode.. getting a page (SMS TXT) to your cell phone that the wash cycle is done would be handy.. I wouldn't pay a lot extra for it but if I had it I would use it.. an
    • What? A reasonable post, with no snide remarks? You Slashdot rebel, you!

      But seriously, I agree that this could actually be a really cool idea, and not at all like the mythical linux-powered toaster. The washer/dryer I grew up with had an obnoxiously loud buzzer that could be heard throughout the whole house when it was done. My current dryer goes beep-beep-beep, and that's it. It's a rare day when I can hear that from upstairs. It would be great to get an email, text msg, or something.

      OTOH, some kind

  • Ok, this has gone far enough. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by foreverdisillusioned ( 763799 ) on Thursday July 13, 2006 @10:11PM (#15716242) Journal
    How the HELL is this deserving of the 'bigbrother' tag? I've always been annoyed that most people associate the Big Brother concept almost exclusively with mass surveillence when the social concepts in 1984 (doublethink, doublespeak, thought police, two minutes' hate, etc.) were infinitely more controlling. Cameras in every home can't hold a candle to the soul-chilling reality of doublethink that surrounds us.

    And NOW... now home automation suddenly becomes a sign of Big Brother? What the fuck? I couldn't care less whether the government knows that my jeans are done drying, let alone the people I share my LAN with. On top of this, I don't see any sort of sign that these machines will become commonplace, let alone mandatory and/or mandatorily monitored by the government... and for what, water restriction enforcements maybe? Yeah, I suppose it could be a possibility, but for fuck's sake let's worry about that trivial and unlikely scenario when/if it gets a little closer to becoming reality.

    I don't care how dumb this idea is, it's not a sign of Big Brother. You want Big Brother, turn on the fucking 6 o'clock news. It may not be mass surveillence, but it's far more representative of the Big Brother mindset than some gimmicky net-ready home appliance.
  • It's ProctEr and Gamble. Trust me, with a parent who has worked there for 20 years, you learn how much they hate to see their name misspelled.

    2 things I learned as a child: don't misspell the Procter, and don't bring up the Satanist urban legend. The first gets them annoyed, the second gets you a batch of literature in the mail or a nasty telephone call.
  • I have a mailroom scale that wouldnt stay calibrated that I have wired to my laundry room. I have a whirlpool duet stacked system and the scale sits out of sight on the top. I have the scale wired to a linux box via cat5. When the laundry is done jabber complains to me (with snooze). When i actually do get around to doing the laundry (moving it from wash to dryer or out of dryer) i just need to hit the 'zero scale' and the jabber will shut up.

    Really works great, makes for a lot of unfolded laundry :)
  • I think it's a neat idea to have the washer/dryer send a text message of some sort when it's done, but does it really require the combined efforts of Microsoft, HP, Panasonic, Proctor & Gamble and Whirlpool to make it happen??? What happened to starting with a relatively simple implementation, and increasing the capabilities (and complexity) as they get a better feel for what their customers want? I predict this will result in nothing but hype.
  • You know, you could actually wash your own clothes and get some exercise, then hang them to dry.

    This might be better than working the double shift to pay for that $1400 washer/dryer set, and then spending extra on the gym membership to stay in shape, all the while exhausted. ...just a thought.

  • Fanuc, the Japanese robot manufacturer, actually does have a robotic kitchen for their employee cafeteria. [fanuc.co.jp] Robots make up meals and do the heavy pot cleaning. It's not totally automatic. Yet.

  • Fortunately for us, Nostradamus' dates for the apocalypse have gone by without anyone noticing. 26th July 1999 was the major one; and there was also one around a month ago I believe? that was supposed to be the alternate date if you read one of the bits in the prophecy in a different way. Hey, we're still alive! (Unless we're now a variation on sinfest's brains in a vat ;). His next prediction seems to be the year 3797...
  • What this REALLY means is that if the dryer is porn-surfing, all those socks that mysteriously disappear are going to be magically replaced with a wide variety of kinky garments.

    Hey, lose something, get something back. It all balances out in the end. I'm thinking three socks for that red-orange rubbery thing that Mila Jovovich held up to the camera in 'The Fifth Element...'

    Keep the peace(es).

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