I am about to purchase a new washer and dryer, so of course I’ve been researching ones with home automation integration. I’m relatively new to HASS so forgive me if I use the wrong terminology or overlooked an obvious feature. I have two questions:
Is there a smart appliances category? I see categories like “climate”, “light”, etc, but nothing related to smart appliances. Is this because no one has worked on this area yet, or because I’m misunderstanding HASS architecture? My understanding is there would need to be a “laundry” component which then is configured for the specific platform of smart appliance brand.
I don’t see any platforms support for the brands of smart washer I’ve been looking at. Is this a “pull requests welcome” situation, or is there some technical reason they are not supported?
I am willing to work on adding smart appliance support (at least for the brand that I buy), just want to make sure I understand whats going on with HASS and that no one is already working on this area.
Jeff,
I don’t know the answer to your questions, but I would love to find out. What features does the smart washer offer as far as home automation goes. Are there any other smart appliances you are getting?
I plan on purchasing a matching washer and dryer. I am leaning heavily towards GE. They have mobile apps, and also IFTT and Alexa integrations. Unfortunately, their API isn’t open to 3rd party developers yet, but at least I know the functionality is there due to IFTT and Alexa.
sensors like status, cycle (normal/heavy/etc), time remaining, detergent and softener levels.
actions like “extend tumble” on the dryer
GE Wifi Connect goes beyond just laundry, their platform seems to also include oven, dishwasher, fridge, etc. Thats why I was curious if the component abstraction should be more generic like “appliance” or more specific like “laundry”.
I haven’t seen any appliance support of that sort per se. But if the appliance has a query-able API, then you can monitor status with HASS sensors. You can also create switches that make API calls. Duct-tape until there’s a full-fledged solution.
If I were you, what I’d do is look for whether the appliances have open APIs. Or at least an API that’s been reverse-engineered. If they have some sort of proprietary thing, or only, say, talk to IFTTT, your options become limited.
All great posts. Besides stressing again that API access is a paramount consideration, I’d also give some thought to what it is you want to get out of a smart washer or dryer. If your main need is knowing when your dryer or wash load is finished, there are other approaches to doing that with cheaper off the shelf devices and some HA automation. I am doing that now with a couple of aeotec smart switches and HA. I get a nice notification on my Android devices as well as my desktop using Pushbullet. The smart appliances come at a real premium price right now and it’s something to consider.
I agree retrofitting non-smart appliances for low cost is a good thing. But I’m buying new appliances no matter what. So I’m going to get one that is “smart”. And I disagree that it costs that much extra.
Just to clarify it was not a criticism; I just wanted to provide an option. If you have a real need for these features:
Monitor cycle status & time remaining
Receive an alert when your cycle has finished, but the door has not been opened
Extend the dryer cycle
Download custom specialty cycles
Monitor levels of SmartDispense tanks
Then the extra expense is a secondary consideration. But if you find out that in practice that the only things you really wanted to do were the first two, then maybe not so much.
Everyone’s set up is different and there’s no right answer. I’m just offering the knowledge to people who may not have been aware of it.
