back to article White goods giant fires legal threats to unplug open source plugin

A plugin and library to permit the control of Haier, Candy, and Hoover appliances recently received takedown requests from Haier Europe's Security and Governance department. The repositories, owned by Andre Basche, consist of a Python library to retrieve information and execute commands on appliances – for example, a smart …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    So the washing machine connects to AWS

    would it not be cheaper for them to enable the machines to connect to an address on the local network - ie somewhere reachable by the house holder's WIFI ? Then there would be zero cost to Haier.

    The downside to Haier would be loss of all that lovely data as to how often I wash my sox and underwear.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

      The downside to Haier would be loss of all that lovely data as to how often I wash my sox and underwear.

      When I was looking for washing machines a few months ago, I was somewhat boggled by the "Features". One even had a scanner to read lables, so presumably it could what underwear you were washing. Then perhaps combine that data to figure out whos. Apparently this was a useful (ie +£200) feature because people are just that dumb to not know how to sort their washing any more. Or they just chuck it in on a 40C cycle and hope for the best. Or if you want to keep your privates private, go commando. But then they'd know.

      But..

      Basche said: "Requesting every five seconds is a bit much (even if the app makes more requests more [frequently], but only in use). With a poorly implemented application, this could perhaps provide some load. The default interval for most integrations is 10 seconds.

      FFS, ITS A WASHING MACHINE!

      For roughly 9,900s a week, it's sitting in my kitchen, switched off. So that would still be 990 unneccesary pings. Maybe they do this so they can inform me that my washing machine has eloped with the fridge, and is currently on it's way to Scotland? But why poll? The '90s called and want their telemetry back after people realised just how much traffic those generated, and figured alerting based on state changes was far more efficient. It's an appliance, why not send a trap instead of polling?

      1. claimed Silver badge

        Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

        It’s the 3rd part library that’s polling the companies services, presumably so something like an ITTT android app can integrate it.

        Also, if you put a device in someone’s home, it’s tricky to do a callback. Potentially a web socket from machine to server would allow a callback, but as it would need to be over HTTPS there is no easy way for the user to get in on this action without an API spec.

        The issue (in this case) isn’t the company API, it’s the companies response to someone trying to help their customers fulfill a need. The company API can surely be improved (can’t everything), and the validity of having a callout in the first place is also interesting, but neither of these are the reason for the article. If you choose to allow polling and want to pay for it, that’s not a bad decision, but the decision to go after the developer of the library was.

        Even if using a web socket/callback the same situation would apply, if you budget resources for the number of washing machines sold and now there’s 3x as many connections, there is still a conflict

      2. DJO Silver badge

        Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

        ...For roughly 9,900s a week, it's sitting in my kitchen, switched off...

        Given that there are 604,800 seconds in a week, you must do a hell of a lot of washing.

        [I think I know where you went wrong, there are 10,080 minutes in a week]

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

          [I think I know where you went wrong, there are 10,080 minutes in a week]

          I blame the Monday time dilation effect! Or a caffeine deficiency. Either way, an excessive amount of polling for an appliance, or a demonstration of just how evil Amazon's billing engine can be.

          1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

            Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

            AWS engineers are looking at the code now, trying to figure out how to shorten the polling interval to 1s ... from their end.

      3. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

        Or they just chuck it in on a 40C cycle and hope for the best.

        Works for me.

        Icon - Except when I leave my truck keys in it & destroy yet another remote start fob.

        1. IGotOut Silver badge

          Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

          Go down to 30, unless you have a particularly dirty job. Most people these days can wash with little heat and detergent.

          Its all just a marketing scam.

          Lower temps, less heat, less chance to mess up your clothes.

          Try it, you'll be presently surprised.

        2. midgepad

          Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

          A remote detector in the washing machine just might be useful.

          I'd prefer it didn't talk about it outside the house, though.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

          Except when I leave my truck keys in it & destroy yet another remote start fob

          Or shed keys, with a key fob given to me by the family which was hefty enough to destroy the drum. At the time I invoked the extended warranty i didn't know that's what had happened - I just though some plastic bits had come off inside.

          Long story short, they replaced the expensive bit (the drum, nearly as much as a new machine) ... eventually. On that visit, the guy found other parts were needed and "happened to mention" that the extended warranty had a 7 day repair guarantee that they'd already missed ;-) Both the guys that came out were great - they were both moaning about how the company didn't have engineers with a clue dealing with the calls and sending people out with appropriate spares. When I first called them, I told them the metal drum was bent - so the first guy came, took one look and said "needs a new drum". A week later the next guy comes with a new drum, but not any other parts "likely to be needed" which would have been a) not very expensive, and b) could have gone back into stock if not needed. So that would have required a third visit - except that I invoked the 7 day clause, got a credit to buy a new machine, and repaired this one myself. SWMBO fancies a new (larger) TV in the dining room.

      4. DanAU

        Re: So the washing machine connects to AWS

        > But why poll?

        This is the thing I don't understand. If they really want to use AWS, it even has a nice service they can use: SNS (Simple Notification System). It supports both mobile notifications and app-to-app pub/sub.

        In reality, it should just use MQTT locally.

  2. abend0c4 Silver badge

    It would seem very unlikely that an experimental Python library would have the number of users to cause Haier to even notice in the normal course of events.

    It would also seem unlikely that a well-designed interface would have to poll constantly for status. Presumably there is somewhere a means to subscribe to status-change events, even if it's yet to be reverse-engineered.

    Maybe the solution would be for Haier to document it, and then everyone would be happy?

    Sorry, got to dash, there are pigs hovering over my balcony...

    1. webstaff

      I think you mean.

      Pigs are hoovering my balcony.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

    If Haier don't want to pay AWS costs, don't use AWS.

    Why the shuddering hell do I need to go all the way out to AWS in order to control a local appliance? It should be directly accessible over the LAN and dealt with that way. It should not need any Internet access.

    Heck, it should probably be on a seperate VLAN where Internet access is denied! The only reason Haier want this external connection is to aggregate data and sell it to marketers. This is why various companies get bent out of shape when people manage everything locally.

    Anecdote: Haier are not worth the money (new fridgefreezer was DOA) and Curry's have abysmal customer support (it's simply a redirect to the OEM which is no use when you are rejecting goods under the SoGA).

    1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

      Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

      You miss the (network) point - LAN is not enough! It is essential for you to be able to view to the real time washing status of your underpants whilst at work ... apparently.

      Whatever happened to the start button and the finished light? The last time I checked not one of these machines had a "sort washing", "put washing into washing machine", "empty washing machine" or "hang out washing" option on either the dial or the unfathomably deep menu system, so what's the point? Am I a dinosaur or is the world becoming increasingly techno-pointless.

      1. HereIAmJH Silver badge

        Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

        You miss the (network) point - LAN is not enough! It is essential for you to be able to view to the real time washing status of your underpants whilst at work ... apparently.

        To be fair, Haier makes more than just washing machines. It's probably an integrated platform that they are rolling out to all of their products. If, for example, your Haier heatpump died in the middle of extreme weather, wouldn't you want to be notified if you weren't home?

        But that's the root of the problem, everyone is integrating with cloud services so that we can have their apps on our phones. The services will work where ever we have cell service. In order to have the convenience of 'works anywhere', without messing with local servers, static IPs or ddns, and firewall rules, we get to live with all the fancy new devices phoning home and potentially spying on us.

        I have struggled to upgrade my hard wired cameras because it seems like everything is now wifi based and requires cloud services. Even though you still have to run power to them, so they aren't going to be completely wireless. And maybe I don't want some bored tech at <insert vendor> watching my front yard.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

          If, for example, your Haier heatpump died in the middle of extreme weather, wouldn't you want to be notified if you weren't home?

          Sure. But I certainly wouldn't want to depend on the vendor, AWS, some app, and a closed-source "ecosystem" where the vendor's law-dogs chase independent developers away to do it.

          That's why if I'm away I have people coming by the house periodically to check on things. Or if I'm going to be gone for a long period of time, I winterize the house.

          We did manage this sort of thing before the Internet of Stupid was rolled out by appliance manufacturers.

        2. webstaff

          Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

          Onvif is your friend here.

      2. cipnt

        Some people...

        Some people love to hate anything that is turned "smart", especially white goods, but fail to see the actual reasons and benefits of doing this.

        With the smart meter rollout, we are gradually shifting towards time of use tariffs for electricity and this will mean we will load our washer or dishwasher, press a button and it will run the wash cycle whenever the energy is cheapest or the grid has extra capacity. I occasionally get 2-3 hours slots of free electricity from Octopus and the remote start function is perfect for that. But I also have their Agile tariff (every half hour has a different cost per kWh) and an automation on my Home Assistant turns the wash program on when a certain number of consecutive hours of cheap electricity begon ,usually around 1-4am. Of course, the washer needs to be loaded by me first and I must enable remote start and leave it pending.

        Of course these appliances don't need internet to achieve this, just some sort of API, ideally completely local. Until now every manufacturer did their own thing, their own integrations and partnerships with smart meter companies, etc. But finally it looks like there might be a common standard on the horizon: the Home Connectivity Alliance.

        The "smart" functionality for these appliances can be a very basic chip like an ESP32 which in turn activates a relay and confirms the operation and state, so it needs not to be expensive. It can recover its cost quite easily. For example, I did some rough calculations and the "smart" remote control/start on my dishwasher can save up to £2 per wash if it runs when the electricity is the cheapest compared to when it is most expensive during a typical day.

        Apply the same logic and functionality to something like a heat pump and the savings really add up.

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
          Meh

          Re: Some people...

          Ummm. I'm on Economy7 and have been for donkeys years. I know exactly when the cheap rate is and set timers for all the kit than makes heavy use of power. Why would I need a 'smart' anything?

          1. cipnt

            Re: Some people...

            That's similar, yet entirely different.

            Look up Octopus Agile:

            https://agile.octopushome.net/dashboard

        2. Wellyboot Silver badge

          Re: Some people...

          >Save up to £2 per wash< - HOLY F*~* !!!!

          A bowl of hot water & some fairly liquid might cost 10p

          1. cipnt

            Re: Some people...

            Fair point. A wash cycle should cost way less than £1

            I did my units wrong and confused W with kWh

            But the point remains: the difference in price of the Agile tariff between the cheapest and the most expensive time of the day can be 3-10x

            Occasionally the price can even turn negative, so you get paid to use electricity

            1. Wellyboot Silver badge

              Re: Some people...

              I've scanned through the dashboard1 showing the last couple of years and indeed recently the average kWh price is in the 10-25p range providing a reasonable saving outside of the peak 4-8pm (26-36p) band.

              However, agile pricing removes the OFGEM price cap and replaces it with this I lifted directly from Octopus website2. (there’s a lot more being explained than just this bit, quite refreshing from a supplier)

              >>>

              min(2.20 x W + P, 95)

              In this equation,

              2.20 is a coefficient that includes our distribution costs, which varies based on where you are in Britain;

              W is the wholesale cost of electricity for that period in pence per kilowatt-hour (p/kWh);

              P is the peak-time premium, which ranges from 11 - 14 based on where you are, and is only applied between 4pm and 7pm.

              95 is chosen to ensure the price is capped at 100p/kWh once VAT is added.

              In this example…

              The Agile price is 2.2 times the wholesale price of energy and between 4.00pm and 7.00pm an additional 12p / kWh is included (but capped at 100p / kWh, come what may).

              There’re a few common questions this often prompts:

              Why is there a penalty at the peak period? Why is there a 100p cap? How well does Agile reflect renewable supply?

              To understand that, we need to look at what makes up our costs.

              These are surprisingly complex and made up of a range of variables...

              Wholesale – the wholesale price of energy can vary heaps, ranging from low negative numbers (when generation is really high, and demand is low) to over 200 p/kWh. Before the energy crisis, it was around 5 p/kWh overnight and 9 p/kWh at peak, in the current market conditions, it is around 22 p/kWh overnight and 36 p/kWh at peak.

              <<<

              These rates follow seasonal trends, any summer savings will be likely be wiped out over a cold winter. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who hasn’t got the capacity to cover their needs at potentially eye watering rates 24/7.

              On the other hand Octopus does have a reasonable capped tariff, I’m happy enough using it :).

              1 https://agileprices.co.uk/ - For a real bum-twitcher look at April 2nd 2022 on the Agile 22-08-21 tariff when the capped unit cost was 20p

              2 https://octopus.energy/blog/agile-pricing-explained/

              1. cipnt

                Re: Some people...

                Of course this type of tariff is not for everyone, but it is a sign if things to come. That's the reason behind smart meters rollout.

                I was already an Octopus customer for some time and they have the option to compare all your smart meter usage data that you have with them against the historical Agile prices and get an estimate of what you would have paid for that period if you were on the Agile tariff. In my case, it came out 30% cheaper, mostly because I'm almost never at home during peak hours.

                | Why is there a penalty at the peak period?

                That's when there is the highest demand on the grid. All those people getting home from work and putting on the kettle or turning on the oven. To support this extra load, the National Grid usually resorts to expensive gas peaker plants.

                | Why is there a 100p cap?

                Presumably to give some reassurance to customers. It's better to do this benevolently, rather than have Ofgem write special rules for your unique tariff.

                | How well does Agile reflect renewable supply?

                Very closely, but there are some surprises. For example I sometimes get free energy when there are strong winds (like the other day with storm Isha) but during those times the national Agile tariff can still be quite expensive.

                As far as I can tell that is because of the location of renewable generation and the lack of transmission lines capacity to shift that surplus to where it's needed. So, because I have solar and wind farms nearby, I'm incentivised to use as much energy as possible rather than them having to shut down generators and pay them penalties (curtailment).

                It's an interestingly complex topic and I've only just started digging... :)

                1. Wellyboot Silver badge

                  Re: Some people...

                  Very complex! it could drive you to drink.

                  I and a quite a few others here have been watching the power generation & delivery saga for years many of us share concerns about the requirement & timescale issues. Basically, 25 years isn't very long to build out the national infrastructure to reliably provide the required clean cheap(ish) power once you get down to engineering reality and if we had the power available we wouldn't need tariffs with this level of price movement trying to level out the demand.

                2. webstaff

                  Re: Some people...

                  Should also mention my mortgage offered me £15k for green upgrades over 5 years at 0%

                  Which includes batteries with solar systems.

                  2 small panels on the garage roof and a huge battery pack for that free power...

                  Thank you very much.

        3. webstaff

          Re: Some people...

          100% agree, sad to see a good argument for connected devices down voted so hard.

          I'm just about ready to embrace this model.

          One major place for me this works well for me is heating about 1000 liters of water in our two fish tanks.

          It's a great way to heat the rooms and acts as a thermal store.

    2. blackcat Silver badge

      Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

      "Heck, it should probably be on a seperate VLAN where Internet access is denied!"

      Every bit of connected kit that I allow to be connected is on a special VLAN. It can see the internet and NOTHING ELSE!

      "The only reason Haier want this external connection is to aggregate data and sell it to marketers."

      Bingo!

      If a company is selling a 'smart' device they must expect it to be integrated into HA or some other such platform.

      Many moons ago an ex colleague got into trouble for decoding the IR protocol from his B&O hifi and posting it online.

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: If anyone should be taken down, it's Haier

      If Haier don't want to pay AWS costs, don't use AWS.

      Indeed.

      Also, if a well-intentioned developer accidentally made a significant increase in their AWS costs, what will happen the first time a malicious one does this? "Oh, I don't like Haier. Here's a great way for a cheap bot army to cost them a whole bunch of cash."

      Haier appear to have loaded this gun and pointed it at their own foot, then gotten all whiny when someone bumped into them and they pulled the trigger.

  4. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Confused

    Given the amount of money involved because they decided to go with AWS so they can draw a little cloud symbol on the box and in the app, have they never heard of rejecting logins and IPs which spam the API?

    1. HereIAmJH Silver badge

      Re: Confused

      That was my first thought; they put an unprotected API on the Internet and then were surprised that someone used it? Is there no authentication?

    2. AVR Bronze badge

      Re: Confused

      Depends how the washing machine itself connects, they probably don't want to ban that.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Confused

        If the washing machine itself spams the API every five minutes then there's no difference.

        If it doesn't, then they basic security practice says they should reject connections from logins/IPs which repeat faster than the washing machine would do.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Confused

          Rate-limiting connections to a scaled-out cloud-hosted service can be somewhat complicated, which may well be too complicated for whoever implemented the thing.

  5. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
    Mushroom

    Just bought both a washing machine and dishwasher

    Sadly both died. In my searches, Cloud enabled options were available for both. Apparently Aritifical Intelligence could tell me how to save water / energy / have cleaner dishes on my WiFi enable dishwasher that only cost two and a half times the price of the cheapest model, or twice the price of the one I actually bought.

    I'm presuming it had a camera inside it, to tell me I'd put my glasses too close together? Or perhaps it would tell me off for making shepherd's pie, when salad cleans up much quicker?

    Or maybe the thing just launches global thermonuclear war if I'm unable to teach it how to play noughts and crosses quickly enough?

    1. gryphon

      Re: Just bought both a washing machine and dishwasher

      Upvote for the oblique Wargames reference.

      Shall we play a game?

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Just bought both a washing machine and dishwasher

        Strange game. The only way to win is not to play.

        Fits this situation too.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Just bought both a washing machine and dishwasher

      We recently purchased a number of appliances — refrigerator, range, (continuous-flow) hot water heaters,1 water softener, garage-door opener — and it was some work finding ones that either weren't network-connected, or (in the case of the range) could be left unconnected without it complaining or disabling any functions we care about. Which, for the range, is "get hot when we manually operate the physical controls on the front", because we don't cook in absentia.

      Fortunately we were able to find models that met our other requirements as well as this one.

      For the washer and dryer, we moved the ones from the old house. It was just easier.

      I do not look forward to someday having to replace the television set.

      1One for domestic hot water, one for radiant-floor heating.

  6. Kev99 Silver badge

    Why does anyone need to have their appliances connected to the internet?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I don't have a wifi enabled dishwasher or washing machine, but if I did *and* it was home assistant compatible, I would have finer grained control over delayed timers, or I could trigger the dishwasher to start when my solar panels reach (say) 2/3rds of their generating capacity in the morning, after automatically checking that the weather is going to be sunny, or if the weather is going to be grey, just cut my losses and set the dishwasher off immediately.

      Because of the above, I can't see the point in smart appliances that won't play nicely with open source software like home assistant, because for me app controlled != smart. For now, I just buy the cheaper dumb versions.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        I don't have a wifi enabled dishwasher or washing machine, but if I did *and* it was home assistant compatible, I would have finer grained control over delayed timers, or I could trigger the dishwasher to start when my solar panels reach (say) 2/3rds of their generating capacity in the morning,

        You don't need an app for that.. ish. Cheap alternative is a variation on a circuit like this-

        https://itecnotes.com/electrical/electronic-threshold-switch/

        and you can buy various modules of threshold switches that might not make your insurer go "Nope" at the first claim. Downside is lack of weather integration, and appliance behaviour. Like how well they can deal with passing clouds and resume whatever they were doing. Which is the challenge with a lot of home automation, ie it's simple to use a threshold switch to energise outlets or a spur at set points, but what can you use on that spur?

      2. cipnt

        One guy gets it...

    2. Nugry Horace

      The built-in dishwasher in our kitchen has the 'finished' light on the inside, so you can't tell if it's safe to open it unless you've already opened it.

      Manufacturers seem to think that sending a notification to the user over the Internet is a satisfactory substitute for, I dunno, putting a light somewhere where you can see it.

      1. Boothy

        My old dishwasher was was one of those built in units, so all the buttons and lights on the inside of the door, only visible when opened.

        One of those lights was a door open warning light!

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Concealing the dishwasher controls is a perfect example of the triumph of the worst sort of industrial design.

          Our new dishwasher (a Bosch, though these days I don't think brand really means much) has a light on the underside of the door that shines on the floor while it's running. That's quite clever, since these newer models are very quiet compared to the clunkers of my youth. But it doesn't have a "I'm finished and these dishes are clean" indicator at all; once it's run, there's no easy way to know whether it contains clean or dirty dishes.

          Fortunately I'm the only one who uses it,1 and I remember.

          1I'm particular about the dishes, so I get to wash them.

          1. DanAU

            My Bosch (around 10 years ago) has the same downward-facing light. It's a nice feature.

            I have it plugged in to a smart plug, and have an automation configured to send me a notification if the power usage drops from above 10W to <10W for longer than 10 minutes, to tell me that it's done. Same for the washing machine. Works well enough.

            1. Boothy

              Interesting replies. My old machine (the one with the stupid hidden warning lights!) came with the house (the house was new). So I just figured I'd leave it till it broke.

              It was an Electrolux (shudder), so colour me surprised when it managed to not only live past normal warranty, and the 'free' extended warranty, but managed over 10 years! (I was really surprised!!).

              But, it was an Electrolux, so all hail the new Bosch :-) (lets see if this one last 10+ years!).

              I got the new Bosch about 2 months ago. Same space, same hidden controls behind the matching door front. (Fitted it myself, so what could possible go wrong!).

              But I now get a little projection on the floor, showing a remaining count-down time, hh:mm, plus it flips to an icon every few seconds showing the stage, Wash, rinse etc,

              All rather cool, but I realised, unless you're desperate for something inside the machine while it's running, it's all rather redundant! Either plan the wash better, or buy a 2nd of whatever it was you needed :-)

  7. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    I hope they can stand up those claims with numbers and it's not that AWS is costing more than they thought and somebody's gone, "Shit, what do we do?! Lets tell management it's this little guy and his handful of users!"

  8. heyrick Silver badge
    Mushroom

    the frequency of his plugin pinging the company's services was the main issue

    Good.

    At the very most they should be like those IP cameras and operate a dynamic DNS service to ping once to get the IP address of the device.

    That you have to ping a cloud repeatedly to retrieve the status of an appliance in your own home is fucking ridiculous and they deserve the trouble that is unleashed when people actually want to do it.

    Data fetishising cockwombles, the lot of them...

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: the frequency of his plugin pinging the company's services was the main issue

      That you have to ping a cloud repeatedly to retrieve the status of an appliance in your own home is fucking ridiculous and they deserve the trouble that is unleashed when people actually want to do it.

      It seems to be 2 pings. One for Haier, then the other for the Python lib. Neither really seem necessary. Problem is, of course cloudybollocks and a lack of common sense. But we've all been in those meetings which are so boring that checking your washing machine is ok every few seconds is a more interesting way to pass the time.

      The 'cloud' just seems unnecessary most of the time, or downright anti-consumer, ie the number of times 'free' cloud connected services get shut down, or converted into subscriptions. Seems like what is really needed is an open standard API that IoT must use to permit saner home automation. Even good'ol SNMP would work better than a lot of the stuff that seems to get flogged. Sure, there'd be issues with NAT traversal, but we have IPv6 to solve that (hah!).

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Service with a smile

    So if these IoT contraptions are any good, no one should ever be stuck with a broken washing machine again, because the device would have messaged the supplier "Serial # 123456 here, my reciprocating dolly posser is getting badly worn!" and an engineer would be at your door next morning, having bicycled round with all the requisite parts to hand.

    1. DJO Silver badge

      Re: Service with a smile

      Oh you naive thing.

      More likely:

      "Serial # 123456 here, my reciprocating dolly posser is very slightly worn - Send a salesman round to sell a new machine to these suckers."

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: Service with a smile

        DJO,

        Cynical. But are you cynical enough?

        Are you sure that the message doesn't go the other way? HQ to serial# 123456 - sales volumes have fallen too low. Stop working and report broken dolly posser to customers so they will call round service engineer salesdroid.

      2. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Childcatcher

        Re: Service with a smile

        A former work colleague with 12 children (Just the one wife) went through so many washes each week, that the laundry set burned through its life in the space of 15 months, faced with escalating under extended warranty repairs & labour costs, the machines were taken away, he was handsomely fully refunded along with the extended warranty cost & banned\politely requested never to buy Sumsang laundry equipment again.

        Armed with a nice cheque they nipped down to a public facing appliance dealership that catered to both public & trade & purchased a commercial grade washer dryer combo.

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Service with a smile

          > purchased a commercial grade washer dryer combo.

          Funny a friend (who lives in a true blue constituency) continues to use the local laundrette. Now you would have thought such area would not have well maintained and frequented laundrettes, but it seem they do because people like to book their washing slot and run several machines concurrently, whilst they go and do the weekly Sainsbury’s shop…

        2. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge

          Re: Service with a smile

          Missed the edit window...

          What I was going to put in my original comment, tracking usage of the device may enable them to void warranties over perceived industrial usage of a domestic grade appliance.

          I'm sure introducing a self destruct code that activates on your 783rd* wash hasn't occurred to them either.

          * Figure derived 3 Laundry loads a week x 52 weeks x 5 years + 1 week to take it outside the warranty period.

    2. cipnt

      Re: Service with a smile

      You don't need a "smart" appliance for this. Most will return some kind of error code which the owner can relay to the customer service or engineer.

      I had an incident like this...

      The engineer came over knowing exactly what the problem was, based on the error number and my description of the symptoms. However, due to their internal processes he couldn't preorder the needed parts. So he had to come over to confirm what the problem was, then book another visit a week later to come back with the replacement parts.

      That might have been a Samsung "smart" washer, but it was a dump process...

  10. fidget

    Hoover's flight to Haier (via Candy)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoover_Company

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_(company)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haier

  11. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    [It]"can stop working at anytime!"

    This is true of any IoT gadget that relies on an external server but it's very noble of them to remind customers of this.

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