Request from the wife... Washing machine timer

[xydix]

I don’t know about you, but my wife isn’t that impressed about all automations.
But today! Today she told my it would be nice to see “in an app” how long time it is left until the washing machine is done.
She doesn’t want an notification, (which would have been easier) she want to know the time left.

The easy way, a camera pointed at the display and the add the image in HASS.
Another thought, Android phone camera > OCR app> plain text file> make HASS read the file.

Is this possible?
Anyone else got something similar?
This is the display of the machine.

[jcacavias (John Cacavias)]

I think this is what you want…

Seven Segments OCR

[patosullivan (Patrick)]

You could use an energy-monitoring wifi plug.

[rpitera (Robert Pitera)]

Just an FYI, Share Your Projects is for completed projects that you are sharing with other users; what you did and how you did it. I moved your post to Configuration, which is more appropriate for when you are asking for help on a project.

You may want to look at some posts I did about setting this up with energy monitoring smart plugs, here’s one that may help:

Use a TP-Link HS110 to monitor my washing machine

I did this with two aeotec SmartSwitches, one for the washer and one for the dryer. The trick is to monitor your wash loads for data points so you know what the energy readings are for the different periods. Some units will have a constant draw, the dryer unit level may raise when you open the door (cause the light goes on), etc. Once you figure this out, you know what your minimum power levels are and you can use these in an automation/sensor set up. I have these two sensors set up (I usual…

[iambendick (Ben Dick)]

I use a door sensor on the lid and set a timer from there using a script. Its pretty simple, but it might be an easier approach.

[kernald (Marc Plano-Lesay)]

Problem with energy monitoring is that you know when it’s done, but you don’t know when it will be.

[wkdwill (Will)]

what about something like Phil has done here Making dumb dishwasher and washing machine smart

[jonathanp]

Had to read this post just because of the title and then the opening line, I am totally in the same boat. Sadly this automation would not impress her as I do the laundry, but thanks for making my evening none the less

[xydix]

@jcacavias

I think this is what you want…

Seven Segments OCR - Home Assistant

Yeah, this is how my first thoughts was.
I like it. But like my laundry room is right now it’s hard to set up the camera.
But this is the way to go for me in the future i think, if i don’t a smart washing machine (I guess they will hit the market soon).

@patosullivan

You could use an energy-monitoring wifi plug.

My first thought was that i will not be able to tell when it is finished.

@rpitera

Just an FYI, Share Your Projects is for completed projects that you are sharing with other users; what you did and how you did it. I moved your post to Configuration, which is more appropriate for when you are asking for help on a project.

You may want to look at some posts I did about setting this up with energy monitoring smart plugs, here’s one that may help:
Use a TP-Link HS110 to monitor my washing machine - #2 by rpitera

Thank you from moving my thread. I didn’t really know where to put it. I thought configuration was most about yaml.

Of course, this is a good way to go but i think my machine changes the time depending on how much load.
I guess i will have to clock it to confirm that. I know my dishwasher work that way.
Analyzing the load would be an good way, i guess there is ways to tell the time left.

@iambendick

I use a door sensor on the lid and set a timer from there using a script. Its pretty simple, but it might be an easier approach.

It sounds simlpe. Simple is often best way to go.
But different programs have different times. and like i wrote above. I think the machine adapts the program depending on the load.

@wkdwill

what about something like Phil has done here Making dumb dishwasher and washing machine smart

I like this too.
But still. She want a timer. That way she knows if she will wait for the machine or not.
This way it is hard to tell if it is 15 or 40 minutes left of the program.

@jonathanp

Had to read this post just because of the title and then the opening line, I am totally in the same boat. Sadly this automation would not impress her as I do the laundry, but thanks for making my evening none the less

Haha. They are not that easy to impress…
I am forbidden to handle the laundry. =)
Could still be a good automation for you. =)

[jonathanp]

Yes, I could do with the power sensor and then setup an automation to tell me it is done. Sadly it’s way down the back of the house so I’d need a few Z Wave items in between to ensure I got the message.

[xydix]

Wifi?
TP-Link HS110 is using wifi.
I don’t have it but in the thread above posted by @rpitera it is used.
It looks like an interesting product (if it is stable). Good price (here, in Sweden) to.

[jonathanp]

@xydix

TP-Link HS110

Yes this might be better and it looks like I can get one here in Australia. WiFi should reach back to the laundry (it really is the back end of my house)

[badgerhome]

I tried to use any energy monitor plug on my tumble dryer but it kept tripping the plug. Says it’s good to 3000W but I’m not convinced. It’s a TKB HOME socket for UK.

[xydix]

The HS110 max load is 3.68 kW.
Maybe you should try it.

[rpitera (Robert Pitera)]

I used Aeotec SmartSwitch 6 gen 5’s for my set up. (But the same logic should work with any device that monitors the current load.)

https://www.amazon.com/Aeotec-Aeon-Labs-ZW096-Switch/dp/B00VQISOCG

It’s not a ‘timer’ in the strict sense, though I really am not concerned how long it will take, simply notifying me when it is done and being able to look at the sensor state to find out if it’s running (on Dashboard, UI or by querying with Alexa) is enough.

For me, the whole idea behind doing it in the first place was so that I didn’t have to pay attention to it until it was time to move the laundry out of the washer or dryer so I could go on with other tasks. But that was just my use case.

[xydix]

You are not a woman.

[rpitera (Robert Pitera)]

Nope. Not married either so WAF is not an issue.

(WAF - Wife Acceptance Factor)

But in all seriousness, I would discuss the project with her and find out what she actually needs. She may think that she needs to know timing, but in actually discussing it and laying out the parameters she may realize that notification is more important.

Now in one of the threads where I discussed this (may even be the one I linked) we talked about putting in a stopwatch to time elapsed from beginning to end. Implementing this, you could begin to catalog the different average times for different loads.

Once you have this info, you could use that data to create a timing matrix.

[jumpkick]

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but yes it’s sort of possible to do this with seven_segments display, I’m been messing with trying to do this very thing.

Here’s my approach, though I’ve not been successful at the final result yet.

1. start with a test picture as you’ve done
2. crop it down to just the clock (eventually you can use convert or ssocr to crop it down, but easiest to start manually until you can get ssocr to recognize the input)
3. run ssocr against it… in your case because you’re “white on black” instead of the passive “black on white” non-lit displays that ssocr normally reads from you’ll need to pass the invert command and -d -1
4. if ssocr works, you’re done… though you’ll probably need to preprocess with ImageMagick convert… so for your image I did convert washer-simple.jpg -colorspace gray -threshold 97% -type bilevel washer-simple-out.jpg
   and that yielded a nice sharp clock image to pass to ssocr
   
5. pass it to ssocr ssocr -P -Ddebug-out.png -d -1 invert washer-simple-out.jpg # first do this and look at debug-out.png to see what ssocr is doing… in this case it comes back as 1003 because ssocr sees the : as a 0…
   
6. finally putting it all together… you’ll need to replace ssocr_bin in seven_segments module with a script that first runs convert and then interprets ssocr’s 1003 as 1:03… SSOCR_TEXT=$(ssocr -d -1 invert washer-simple-out.jpg); if [ ${SSOCR_TEXT} -gt 1000 ]; then echo ${SSOCR_TEXT:0:1}:${SSOCR_TEXT:2:2}; fi

I think the approach would work… I still need to figure out how to get a bash script to launch from ssocr_bin and catch all the arguments…

[vloris]

Nifty solution! Camera + OCR.

I settled for something a bit more simple: instead of a countdown timer, I display a countup timer which tells me for how long the washing machine has been running.
That is very simple as every sensor already has an attribute ‘last-changed’. In my lovelace UI I have this card:

- title: Washing Machine
  type: entities
    - entity: sensor.wasmachine_status
      secondary_info: last-changed

Usually I know what program I started the washing machine with and how long it should take, so pretty easy to calculate in my head when it will be finished.

[Yuran (Anders Yuran)]

Buy a smart washing machine. Plenty around