Trapped by rubbish software in white goods

[fourtytwo42]

If only it were mandatory to provide consumers source code on request so we could fix the crap they send out!!

50+ replies on an EE forum, with long oscilloscope-hacking threads no less, and no one has made the comment that you don't need the source code to fix things?

Whatever happened to the "hacker spirit", as it were? I suspect that's why products are so crap these days --- no one really bothers to actually do anything about it beyond complaining.

Buy a cheap machine, make it better yourself --- I wonder if there's a market for these mods... provided you don't get noticed by the bureaucractic regulatory wankers.

Believe me I have looked into this and managed to fix the de-humidifier externally but fixing for example the washer internally would require re-writing from scratch it's entire code and that would be after reverse engineering the hardware to derive the software interface. OK not a complicated product but probably a good few man months of effort to fix one bug! OTH the GTI is several orders of magnitude worse being a DSP based product with filters and control algorithms, re-creating that from scratch would probably take me several years! So I am sorry to only moan, I do what I can within the realms of practicality but gimmi the source code so I can modify the annoying bits and I would be in utopia

[Assafl]

If only it were mandatory to provide consumers source code on request so we could fix the crap they send out!!

50+ replies on an EE forum, with long oscilloscope-hacking threads no less, and no one has made the comment that you don't need the source code to fix things?

Whatever happened to the "hacker spirit", as it were? I suspect that's why products are so crap these days --- no one really bothers to actually do anything about it beyond complaining.

Buy a cheap machine, make it better yourself --- I wonder if there's a market for these mods... provided you don't get noticed by the bureaucractic regulatory wankers.

Believe me I have looked into this and managed to fix the de-humidifier externally but fixing for example the washer internally would require re-writing from scratch it's entire code and that would be after reverse engineering the hardware to derive the software interface. OK not a complicated product but probably a good few man months of effort to fix one bug! OTH the GTI is several orders of magnitude worse being a DSP based product with filters and control algorithms, re-creating that from scratch would probably take me several years! So I am sorry to only moan, I do what I can within the realms of practicality but gimmi the source code so I can modify the annoying bits and I would be in utopia

Obviously you can. You are just ignoring the possibilities.

You don't HAVE TO reverse the code. You can, for example, detect the sequence that happens during a spin, and disconnect the fill solenoid during a spin. There are many ways to convert white goods into something better. Just adding a leak detector and a faucet shutdown is a mod many do to an appliance.

I have an Espresso Machine that I converted to full pressure and flow profiling, bluetooth connection to a scale, etc. All EXTERNAL to the main controller. The main controller did have an RS232 output which I reversed and was able to get the operating mode of the machine from. Everything else was Arduino, relays, PWM controllers and signal isolators operating independently but in sync with the original espresso equipment.

You do need to figure out the timing & logic which may be difficult for a complicated device like a washing machine (espresso is very simple in comparison). So admittedly, it is only worth doing if you expect to hold on to the appliance for MANY years to come.

So for those complining about the washer motor control: You can probably add a VFD controller (and wire the enable pin to the original relay). That should extend the life of the motor and drive train considerably. But is it worth adding a 200$ VFD Drive to a 300$ washer? I don't think so but everyone has different priorities.... 

But everything is modable: I even modded the fan in the bathroom (annoying - if wired to turn on with the light - SO would complain about noise, and if it was wired to a separate switch - it was never used and the bathroom was always damp and smelly...). So I added a TDR that turns it on for 5 minutes after a human turns the light off. Now it is both fresh and quiet.

[Assafl]

One point about the logic of white goods: You may not always understand the reasoning behind different choices made the by the goods designer.

Sometimes it is indeed a bug or an error.

But, at least in my experience,  at a later date when you find yourself sitting at a conference with a designer of such goods you end up realizing that some of the "bugs" were actually planned in to maybe extend longevity, or to allow the use of a cheaper part, or to achieve a better energy rating, or to avoid undue stress from a weaker component, etc.

As humans we tend to be far too dismissive of the complexity of even the simplest of thing. A washing machine is theoretically a simple thing. But in practice, I am not so sure. I even ran into trouble replicating the simplest ever device known to man - a sink stopper! Think it is simple? think again. The first iteration actually floated away... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1664940

[A Hellene]

Well, though it still is a hydro-mechanical appliance and, not exactly a White Good, I loathe the moment we will be forced to be using an IoT enabled toilet bowl...

Smart devices for imbecile mentally challenged users...


-George

[bd139]

There will be a Japanese porn site for hacked IoT enabled toilet bowl camera photos no less than 30 seconds after they are deployed.

[Vtile]

Ahh, yes... Apple Care... the product which basically gives you nothing above and beyond what Australian Consumer Law already provides.

There's no way any sensible country's law that forces Apple to replace a shattered screen caused by customer dropping it or sitting on it or smashing it, and LCDs don't die on their own in less than 2 years. They do develop white marks, they do develops color shifts, but that's not gonna happen under light, personal use in 2 years, and if you use it in a commercial environment, you are not covered by laws as consumer anymore.

IIRC in sweden with iPhone1 apple did lost the case with self-cracking displays at winter time. Can recal what were the case with self-igniting batteries in them.

[Vtile]

IIRC in sweden with iPhone1 apple did lost the case with self-cracking displays at winter time. Can recal what were the case with self-igniting batteries in them.

I've heard the same in China which someone claimed their iPhone to be shattered magically with no external force, but there is a reason why you see it on TV -- it doesn't happen very so often.
If everyone can claim their phones shattered on natural causes and get a free replacement, then Apple can stop selling AC+ or whatever services, and there's no need to put that on TV.
CTE mismatching can cause screen to shatter, but I don't think it happens often. Maybe one in a million, but then it is most likely to be caused by operating/storage beyond rated temperature.

Well that sweden thing were due the iPhone were specked iirc -10degC or were it even 0 d.C and sweden is partly on arctic circle .. normal use environment so apple were judged to be responsible repair to warranty.
.and Ericson and Nokia had put out products over a decade without a such silly problems so they couldn't claim it is impossible in technical standpoint.

But apple is not producing a white goods anymore, iMac did look like a fancy juicer

[tooki]

]I've never seen a Bosch washer or dryer but I know several people with Bosch dishwashers and those are wonderful. Not the easiest to work on and not completely trouble free, but incredibly quiet and do a nice job of cleaning the dishes. Relatively average in regards to maintenance and reliability.

I can attest to every aspect of this statement. I’ve got a Bosch dishwasher (actually all the appliances in this apartment are Bosch or Siemens, which are the same appliance company), and it is indeed super quiet and does a great job at washing dishes. But after a year they had to fix the door mechanism under warranty, because the puny nylon anchor for the cord that links the door to the closer spring failed. (A common failure according to the repairman.)

And while the repair itself was expertly executed, they tried to bamboozle me into paying for maintenance product I didn’t ask for. They frittered up a lot of goodwill and respect I had from them, all over an $8 bottle of machine sanitizer. (The repairman took one bottle and used it to “start a test cycle” to verify proper operation, and handed me another bottle and said “use this 2 months from now”. A week later, I get a bill for $16 for two bottles of sanitizer. I call and say “sorry, I didn’t ask for it and wasn’t told it would cost money”, to which she says “OK, I’ll take off the used one and you can just pay for the second one.” Incredulous, I said “no way, I didn’t ask for it”, so she replies “then you can mail back the unused bottle”, at which point I read her the riot act about Swiss sales law, which includes that you cannot ask someone who received an unsolicited product to pay postage to return it. So in the end, they actually sent someone to come by and pick up the stupid $8 sanitizer, and I didn’t pay anything. But I’m sure that the bottle of sanitizer only cost them $4 maximum if they’re selling it for $8, so I’m sure the labor to retrieve it exceeded its actual value. So instead of saying “sorry for the confusion, please accept it for free with our compliments”, they actually spent money to piss off a customer...  )

But apple is not producing a white goods anymore, iMac did look like a fancy juicer

Apple never made white goods. (“White goods” does not mean just any product that happens to be white colored.) In English, “white goods” specifically means major household appliances, because historically those were made mostly with white enameled steel housings: stoves and ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, and similar large household appliances.

Small appliances like toasters, mixers, blenders, and kettles are expressly not considered white goods, but are indeed actually called “small appliances”.

[glarsson]

IIRC in sweden with iPhone1 apple did lost the case with self-cracking displays at winter time. Can recal what were the case with self-igniting batteries in them.

The first iPhone model was never sold in Sweden. Another phone or fake news.

[glarsson]

]IIRC in sweden with iPhone1 apple did lost the case with self-cracking displays at winter time. Can recal what were the case with self-igniting batteries in them.

The first iPhone model was never sold i Sweden, so it can't be that model.

[glarsson]

IIRC in sweden with iPhone1 apple did lost the case with self-cracking displays at winter time. Can recal what were the case with self-igniting batteries in them.

The first iPhone model was never sold in Sweden. Must be some other phone or broken memory.

[kaz911]

appliances are "hell on earth"

We bought a house 2 years ago - and have two little kids

About 1 week after moving in and about 1 week before Christmas - the washing machine (old) breaks down - the cement balance wheel thing simply broke apart.

Then we rush ordered a new Samsung super model (geeks...)

Device One - Samsung
5 days later it breaks down just in time to NOT be serviced until after New Year! (Christmas with whole family here - 14 people total - 4 smelly teenagers - 2 toddlers - no washing machine)

1St repair: known fault on the machine - the internal hose rattles loose during transport - Hose replaced on site - 2 hour job

2nd - 8 months later - Washing machine has WiFi (geek - but on separate WiFI Subnet/VLAN) - WiFi stops working  - control board replaced. Known error ... (according to repair guy)

3rd - Again just before THIS Christmas - same issue as 1st repair -  Reported 1 week before Christmas - no repair people until after New Year... So I opened it up myself. Bottom exit hose fallen off. Was secured with special "Samsung" hose clamp - plus 1st engineer put zip-tie on 2nd grove - but not one zip tie - 2 tiny zip-ties - zip-tied together - like the ones you would use for AWG16-26 cable. Zip ties had just slipped apart and previous engineer had not figured out how Samsungs hose clamp actually worked and put it on the wrong way so it only had moderate pressure on the hose.    I put on a real mans ziptie that fitted in the grove - outdoor marine thing meant for engine rooms

I kept the maintenance appointment for January - and told the guy "Sorry but I repaired it - but you need to sign off so I do not get into trouble with future warranty. And then I showed him the pictures...... And then there was absolutely no problems signing off that THEY did the repair I had completed ..

Device 2: Dishwasher - front panel failed after about 1 week. Some sensor error. Engineer came - replaced electronics - and left. Again with "typical error" - I have the board here - it looks fine - but probably a cold joint somewhere or just a loose connection.  Tried selling the washing solution as well for about 3 times of what they cost in the supermarket but was politely told no thanks.

Device 3: New Fridge (with a 15 year old house all white goods are failing) - Got a new fridge from same company as Dishwasher (not German/Not Asian) - it was more noisy than the dishwasher when running! Parts missing... Then they brought a replacement - but managed to "ding it" somehow in transport. So I ended up sending both back. 

Device 4: Got a fancy new extractor fan as the old one was incredibly noisy and did not work well. Probably a few fan blades missing.. - Bought a "slightly scratched"  super-model for < 1/2 price. No scratches on that at all. But still very noisy when installed and did not work well. Then found out that extractor fan canals was NOT ducted to anywhere but my end-wall and not THROUGH the wall... We did think it was smelly cooking in there but we thought it was the fan. And of course once the extractor could get rid of the air - noise went down to very tolerable levels (for an extractor fan). So much for a British super high "quality" builder! (We then found another 2 extractor outlets that had not put through the wall either.... - but another 2 was done "right)

Extractor fan btw is a German model with WiFi - Brand NEFF which is 90% the same as Bosch and Siemens. But they have changed a comma somewhere in the software so it does not work 100% with Bosch Siemens control software - moronic.

The NEFF models do not support manual WiFi connection - only WPS - at least according to their support and manual. But if you follow the Bosch/Siemens manual/instructions - it works fine setting it up manually - but you can't really use it for anything unless someone hack it. I got a hint when I read the spec sheet for the similar Siemens model of extractor fan as it said "feature Y only on NEFF device" - but that is first time I have seen NEFF mentioned on Siemens website.


So short - Samsung software is okay on the washing machine. Same goes for Siemens/NEFF. But UI on their App's? forget about it - terrible. A bit like Keysight/Tektronix - great (usually) firmware - terrible off device software. Even GOOD LOOKING firmware on the devices - and then the App's let it down. Either they look great and work bad - or they work great and look terrible (I do think Fluke is furthest behind right now on the software side)

So yes white goods are not fun. Neither are brown goods (that is what consumer electronics products are known as in many places)

So my advice - if you buy new white goods - the day of delivery - file a case that your device needs repair - because so far it has been about 70% right for us with new devices. Or do not get rid of your old device if possible until you are CERTAIN the new one works. Or at least write the phone number for the support hotline down right away.

[bd139]

This is where it is heading:

https://youtu.be/SnzzWGcdMqY

[james_s]

I'm trying to figure out why on earth an extractor fan would need WiFi or what possible benefit that could bring. So you can turn the fan on remotely if you realize you left something cooking when you headed out on vacation?

[thm_w]

The fridge decides to run a 500W heater in the back for so called auto-defrost at frequent intervals.

How else would you like it to defrost the coils?
Sure they could eliminate the water evaporation portion, but how many people would want to hook up a drain to their fridge or empty it every few weeks. 99% of people wouldn't want the hassle to save <$40 in electricity per year.

About a year ago we got an LG front loader washing machine. Inverter driven motor with direct drive to the tub. So far so good. Even has a function that you can push a pair of buttons and it will play a series of tones (like an acoustically coupled modem does) into a smartphone app to help diagnose any problems. The really dumb thing about this washer though is that when it is filling up, the water gets turned on and of maybe twenty times! Perhaps partially fill and then rotate a bit several times for the sake of evening out the wash load might make sense, but this puts in what sounds like as little as half a cup at a time. We have noisy house pipes too, so had to go and get a water hammer surge arrester thing. Next time I'll document it properly, but it's just ridiculous how slow and tedious and halting it is to fill.

Get dampeners, they will help but not eliminate the problem. The machine is determining how much is the minimum amount of water it needs to add to wash your clothes properly (based on balance of the drum when it rotates somehow). If you don't care about saving a bit of water that's understandable, but the manufacturers are required to adhere to standards.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Sioux-Chief-Mini-Rester-3-4-in-x-3-4-in-FHT-x-MHT-Washing-Machine-Arrester-HD660-H/202273959

[tooki]

About a year ago we got an LG front loader washing machine. Inverter driven motor with direct drive to the tub. So far so good. Even has a function that you can push a pair of buttons and it will play a series of tones (like an acoustically coupled modem does) into a smartphone app to help diagnose any problems. The really dumb thing about this washer though is that when it is filling up, the water gets turned on and of maybe twenty times! Perhaps partially fill and then rotate a bit several times for the sake of evening out the wash load might make sense, but this puts in what sounds like as little as half a cup at a time. We have noisy house pipes too, so had to go and get a water hammer surge arrester thing. Next time I'll document it properly, but it's just ridiculous how slow and tedious and halting it is to fill.

Modern appliances do lots of clever things to save energy. The biggest of all is to reduce the amount of water that must be heated, because the heating is the biggest energy use. Adding water little by little to match the load size, as thm_w says, is how clothes washers accomplish this.

Modern dishwashers do something else really clever: when the wash phase ends, they pump the hot dirty wash water into a heat exchanger reservoir in the back wall of the wash cavity and hold it there. The fresh rinse water is drawn in and splashed around so it absorbs the heat from the dirty water, and only then is the dirty water dispatched to the drain. Saves tons of energy. The downside is longer wash times, added complexity in the machine, and the heat exchanger, whose channels are prone to collecting gunk, making regular cleaning with special machine cleaner essential.

[Cyberdragon]

I'm trying to figure out why on earth an extractor fan would need WiFi or what possible benefit that could bring. So you can turn the fan on remotely if you realize you left something cooking when you headed out on vacation?

Probably because there are some hidden sensors that analyze the gasses to know exactly what you're cooking and transmit that data so they can sell it to ad agencies who try to sell you overpriced food on the internet.

You do realize that alot of IOT crap is susceptable to hacking right (the bad kind)...so if it's not the companies selling your data, it's people far worse.

[tooki]

The machine is determining how much is the minimum amount of water it needs to add to wash your clothes properly (based on balance of the drum when it rotates somehow).

No, it tumbles to make sure the clothes all get wet and have soaked up water. It adds water little by little so as to reduce overfilling. The goal is for the clothes to be sopping wet, but with almost no residual water in the drum. So it tosses the clothes (so the water doesn’t drizzle off) and then checks the water level, and adds water now and then until even in motion, the water level begins to rise. Then it knows the fabrics are saturated, and begins washing.

Nb: I find it incredibly relaxing to watch clothes in a front-loader. I’ve sat and watched from start to finish more times than I care to confess, lol! (The nerd in me also appreciates observing how it behaves with different cycles, load sizes, fabric types, etc.)

[james_s]

How else would you like it to defrost the coils?
Sure they could eliminate the water evaporation portion, but how many people would want to hook up a drain to their fridge or empty it every few weeks. 99% of people wouldn't want the hassle to save <$40 in electricity per year.

I'd be curious to try a reversing valve like the sort used in heat pumps. Periodically reverse the flow of refrigerant, pumping ambient heat into the coils to defrost them. A heat pump is ~3x as efficient as straight electric heat in terms of the amount of heat placed where you want it per kWh of electricity. The added system cost may take a long time to be recovered though.

A significant challenge with the defrost cycle which applies to heat pumps too is that it is very difficult to actually detect the amount of frost present, so most systems are rather dumb and simply trigger a defrost cycle every x amount of compressor run time, then terminate the cycle when a temperature sensor on the evaporated is tripped. This obviously results in a compromise where if you are defrosting frequently enough for humid environments you are defrosting more often than necessary for dry environments.

[IanB]

I'd be curious to try a reversing valve like the sort used in heat pumps. Periodically reverse the flow of refrigerant, pumping ambient heat into the coils to defrost them. A heat pump is ~3x as efficient as straight electric heat in terms of the amount of heat placed where you want it per kWh of electricity. The added system cost may take a long time to be recovered though.

That might not solve an (apparently common) problem that occurred with my fridge/freezer, namely that the condensate drain hole would get plugged with ice and stop draining during a defrost cycle, with the result that the defrosted water would instead overflow and flood down inside the fridge.

I eventually discovered the cure was to retrofit a "hot finger" device that attaches to the defrost heater and reaches down inside the drain hole, melting any ice plug that tries to form there.

[Bassman59]

The fridge decides to run a 500W heater in the back for so called auto-defrost at frequent intervals.

That auto-defrost cycle is your friend. The coils are in the freezer compartment, and since the unit doesn’t pump out the air in the freezer (unless it’s a very high-dollar unit!) the moisture in the air condenses on the coils. Without regular defrosting, the coils end up being covered in snow, so air cannot circulate around them. The fridge section is cooled by a fan pulling cold air from the freezer section, and if the air cannot circulate, the fridge gets warm while the freezer remains frozen.

Too often, that happens and people end up with a new fridge because they don’t know how to fix this problem. If the coils are iced over, that means the defrost coil is either bad or the timer that controls it has gone bad. This is the case with my fridge ... every once in a while we notice the fridge section is too warm (I have digital thermometers with magnet backs on the side of the fridge, with probes inside both compartments), so I remove the coil cover from inside the freeze and spend twenty minutes defrosting the coils with a heat gun. At some point I’ll get a new timer for it.

Oh, there was a point where the compressor wasn’t starting, so I did a bit of web searching and learned that the likely culprit was the relay that switches it on and off, driven by a timer. The test? Pull the relay out and shake it; if it rattles, it’s bad. There’s a place called Appliance Parts Depot not far from my house, so I took the relay over to them with the model number of the fridge and $20 later I had a new relay and a cold fridge.

Of course, it’s the old-school Kenmore/Electrolux fridge with mechanical timers and zero microprocessors inside.

[CatalinaWOW]

I have had relatively few bugs in the "white goods" purchased over the last few years.  Nothing special on brands, just middle of the road quality and price.  But I have been infuriated by the "operational characteristics" forced on these goods by well intentioned people. 

The timer on the coffee/tea maker that turns it off after two hours.  Apparently there is a rampant problem with folks leaving their pot on until it boils dry in a flammable surrounding while incurring a failure in the thermal fuse that has been part of these things for decades.  And no one in the regulatory world takes more than two hours to drink 12 cups of coffee. 

The power regulator on lights in a ceiling fan that solves another rampant problem - fires from people who put very high power incandescent bulbs in these fixtures.  Fixes a problem that could easily be fixed with a fuse and dramatically reduces the reliability of the device while significantly increasing the cost.  If the problem even still exists in this world of LED bulbs and even CFLs.

These are really just more examples of many of the things mentioned above.  A defrost system designed to work in cold rain forest conditions which is overkill for much of the world.  A washer that has been tweaked for efficiency to the point that it has lost some utility for many.  Not software bugs (or hardware bugs) at all, but the result of a great deal of thought and effort headed in a different direction than the complaining end user wanted to go.

[james_s]

I've fixed that problem twice on the 70s vintage fridge at the family cabin, both times somebody was about to replace the whole fridge, turned out the defrost timer is part of the ice maker and the whole thing was jamming up. The entire evaporator was encased in a solid block of ice, it took me several hours with a heat gun and propane torch to carefully defrost it all into several buckets worth of water.

[kaz911]

I'm trying to figure out why on earth an extractor fan would need WiFi or what possible benefit that could bring. So you can turn the fan on remotely if you realize you left something cooking when you headed out on vacation?

Probably because there are some hidden sensors that analyze the gasses to know exactly what you're cooking and transmit that data so they can sell it to ad agencies who try to sell you overpriced food on the internet.

You do realize that alot of IOT crap is susceptable to hacking right (the bad kind)...so if it's not the companies selling your data, it's people far worse.

I did not buy it for the WiFi but because it was chaper than any of the other equal units. But it is used to turn on and control intensity when the hub/cooker is on. It could have been solved differently but they did not. I would just have put in an IR Led in the hub and receiver in the extractor. WiFi is clearly overkill....

And they could monitor what I cook - as it does have sensors - so far only seen to change the speed dependent on cooking smells and cooking intensity.

And yes Wifi can be abused - which is why I have them isolated on their on their own sub-net - and I do monitor their communications with deep packet inspection on that subnet. And it is easy to disable their routes if they become to aggressive.

And while I would be nervous about most companies and data leakage - I’m not (too) worried about it from German companies. They tend not to be evil in that way..   Samsung on the other hand... I would not trust them as far as I could throw them.

But I do like I can get notifications from washer / dryer that they are done. Else I tend to forget about them and nothing worse than a wash that has been sitting for 8+ hours - the longer it sits the longer I have to iron or fight with it to get it straight’ish before hanging it out. And even more so for the dryer.

But software on all of them are “baby steps” simple apart from the Samsung one.

[Gyro]

Moved to https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/ces-standout-products-for-whatever-reason/ to avoid diverting the thread.