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This should be a crime. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 5 days ago (1 child)

Another feature that would be nice is to communicate with all the other appliances (or better just have a server manage them all) to keep them from cycling on at the same time to spread those energy spikes out.

I have a circuit that includes a freezer, convection toaster oven, and my PC. If my PC is in (especially if I'm gaming) and both the freezer and oven cycle on at the same time, it trips the breaker. If they are slightly staggered, like the oven comes on and then the freezer comes on 4 second later, it's fine, but if they just happen to do it too close to each other I need to run to reset the breaker before my UPS runs out for my PC and then try to figure out how much more time the oven needed to finish cooking.

Also, it would be nice if my water using appliances could talk to my water softener and trigger a regeneration cycle if the softener would otherwise run out.

That's about it for the uses of smart appliances that I'm interested in that I've thought of so far. Instead they seem to mainly want to connect to apps (so they have an excuse to have a connection that can also be used to mine data).

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    I have multiple appliances designed to increase or decrease the heat in their interiors, and for some reason they aren't connected. I have a water heater that has nothing to do with my refrigerator, even though pumping heat out of one and into the other would be quite efficient, to say nothing of overall household HVAC.

    What I don't need is to have any of this managed by a vendor's server somewhere out on the internet. That seems to be the main reason to sell products today, so.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Not to mention during winter, the outside is full of air that would be great for the freezer or fridge. Instead we keep that cold air out as much as possible, use energy to heat the inside, then use more energy to prevent that heat from getting into the food box (well, more accurately to pull the heat that does get in there back out).

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  • [–] 3 points 5 days ago

    In Winter, I do leave things like sodas out in the cold while I'm putting away other groceries.

    It made some kind of sense in the 50's when you were trading in an ice box for a refrigerator, but...why can't my fridge also be a hot water heater for my dishwasher?

    "Smart" appliances. I could see it with a thermostat. My current thermostat is just a step above a bimetallic strip; it has a few mode switches, a temperature sensor and a temperature setting. It turns one of two relays on if it's warmer than the setting if AC mode or colder than the setting if heat mode. It doesn't account for OAT, time of day, occupancy, or power concerns. Smart thermostats actually do some of that, plus allow for remote control, ie you can set your AC to run less and keep the house warmer while you're not in it and have it cool back down as you approach.

    But what the fuck is a smart microwave for? Alec of Technology Connections showed off a microwave from the 90's that had a lot of built-in recipes you could select. The manufacturer figured out how to most ideally microwave artichokes so now it has an artichoke option in a very 90's menu system. That's all in ROM built into the device and it works to this day even though the manufacturer has long since stopped supporting it. Nowadays they'll put an ESP8266 in it, it'll connect to Chinese botnets and maybe also their recipe server which will be shut down in 11 months. I genuinely can't imagine why you'd need to connect a dishwasher, toaster, coffee pot or blender to the internet. Meanwhile my water heater could probably use a few more transistors.

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