Is It Dry Yet?

https://badgerbadgerbadgerbadger.dev/posts/misc/2024-04-08-is-it-dry-yet/

79 144 2 years ago

I got tired of my dryer being dumb.

0x457• 2 years ago

They do sell dryers and washers that can notify you. HN crowd probably doesn't like those because "OMG why does it need internet?".

They don't even cost that much compared to ones that aren't connected.

badgerbbbadger8• 2 years ago

We did look into such dryers as well but my girlfriend and I wanted to use our ecocheques and we also wanted a cheap dryer that just got the job done. The nearest smart dryer was at least a 100 euros more expensive.

And it ended up being a fun project for me ^.^

rrauenza2• 2 years ago

I wonder if you could have done it like a motion sensor scheme.

If you consume 100watts, reset a countdown timer. So as home assistant polls the outlet, it should keep resetting the timer. If the timer expires, then notify that the dryer is done.

badgerbbbadger8• 2 years ago

That might be a smarter way to do it! Right now I have this thing where if we don't unload the dryer it does a sort of warming cycle every 20 minutes or so. And that triggers another alert. We don't mind because that just means we _should_ unload the dryer to stop it from consuming more power.

But I suppose the countdown approach would still trigger the same thing. I suppose if I didn't really want the extra alerts I should be monitoring the duration of power consumption and exclude the ones that are of a shorter duration.

I might try the countdown approach for something different and see what results I get. Thanks for the idea!

eternityforest• 2 years ago

Does Home Assistant support Apprise notifications? For my automation system I have a box where you can enter an Apprise target, and get notified with the nfty.sh app.

It's really nice because the channel name is the password, there's no API key or sign up needed.

I like Zrok a lot for true remote access, it seems to do something similar to what tailscale is doing there, but it's powered by some decentralized tech that seems to leave open the possibility of having the tunnel endpoint in a phone app so it still works on isolated LANs.

Of course this is all theoretical, since in practice I keep my personal everyday practical tech a bit more off the shelf, I just put a YoLink vibration sensor on the dryer.

switch007• 2 years ago

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/apprise/ seems so

CraftThatBlock• 2 years ago

Yes, it has an integration for Apprise. You can also just use the Home Assistant mobile app to receive notifications on your device.

bfdm• 2 years ago

Hah, facing a similar gripe so enjoyed this. Unfortunately/thankfully the dryer is on its last legs too, so will likely be replaced by the smart washer sibling unit later this year.

apercu• 2 years ago

My experience with "smart" driers is maybe less positive than others. Seems they typically only have one sensor in a rotating drum, if they "read" a t-shirt they will stop because it's "dry". But your jeans and your towel are not. Or, the sensors become intermittent, so you stop using the "smart" features.

IncreasePosts• 2 years ago

I would naively assume the sensor would be a hygrometer measuring the humidity of the outgoing air. What kind of dryer do you have?

r2_pilot3• 2 years ago

It's not naive and that's how many of them work.

sroussey2• 2 years ago

Mine has no outgoing air…

porphyra2• 2 years ago

That's not it. The moisture sensor is two strips of metal on the inside of the dryer door that measure the conductivity between them or something.

mhink• 2 years ago

For what it's worth, my understanding is that it's generally not recommended to wash/dry different kinds of fabric together.

pstrateman• 2 years ago

Yes before drying my clothes I'm sure to blend them to a consistent mush.

nan60• 2 years ago

Mine does exactly this and it frustrates my family and I to no end. More often than not clothes are not dry and I’ll just end up putting them through a speed dry cycle because that one doesn’t turn off automatically (which completely defeats the purpose as I’m running through more cycles than needed)

porphyra2• 2 years ago

Even when I have a single blanket, it stops after a few minutes because one corner of it is dry while the inside is wet. I've had many loads develop mildew as a result. For large items even the "bulk load" setting with the max dryness doesn't reliably dry them throughout --- I have to manually put in "time dry" which is only accessible through the app.

smilingsun2• 2 years ago

The cool thing about water is that evaporates all by itself. For free even. No electricity is required.

So an alternative to making the tumble dryer "smarter" can be to simply not use it for most of the time, thereby cutting the loss caused by "dumb" dryers.

The engineering part that's missing is related to re-introducing and improving the many awesome laundry line systems that used to be available.

smegger001• 2 years ago

Hanging clothes on a clothes line to dry only works you dont live somewhere with frequent rain

dartos• 2 years ago

Or very high ambient humidity (which I guess causes frequent rain)

yorwba• 2 years ago

It works just fine indoors.

big_man_ting• 2 years ago

How about you hang your clothes indoors when it's raining inside? I've been doing that for years in a rainy country in a tiny studio apartment. No issues.

ajuc5• 2 years ago

Where I live most people have special pulley systems in their bathrooms for drying clothes. Sth like this: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61sYCKX1U6L._AC_UF1000,1...

You put your clothes there, and the next day they are dry.

Other common solution is collapsible drying racks on your balcony: https://images.morele.net/i256/12998234_0_i256.jpg

Or just clothes lines (but usually people have some backup in case it rains).

I've never seen people use powered dryers for clothes. And we get our share of rain, and in the winter it gets to -20C sometimes.

CalRobert4• 2 years ago

One of the issues is that tossing your stuff in the dryer is fast and easy. Hanging clothes to dry is kind of tedious. It also tends to result in crinkly clothes (especially shirts and towels). But I am curious about these laundry line systems you mention!

smilingsun2• 2 years ago

Here's a great example of putting a bit of engineering into hanging clothes outdoors: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/hills-hoist-iconic-ro...

I've seen many great things in photos where laundry lines are strapped out between windows and across streets "ad hoc". But most of them were in photos. I think the "pulley" that carries the line and the line itself seem to be more durable than what my local building market sells... I can only get nylon lines and small pulleys, so I'm not happy with the projects I've done so far. The best lines I've found are the ones with metal wire inside.. the ones without metal in them break very quickly.

One that I would really like to have is a strong, durable multi-line rack that sits below a window. If possible, I'd like to be able to expand and contract it.

There's also a lot of ideas shared online for creative indoor solutions.

In general, Pinterest is the place to go.

Indoors: https://www.houzz.com.au/magazine/designs-for-living-10-dryi...

Regarding crinkly clothes: generally if you hang up a wet shirt to dry, it gets less crinkly than in a tumble drier. That's an old tip for reducing ironing efforts :)

Regarding "hard" towels etc: This one is really difficult, especially terrycloth and similar material that's supposed to be very soft can seem hard after air drying. You can try to add vinegar as a softener if your water is hard, I find that makes a good improvement. And you can generally rub clothes soft - I tried folding towels and give it a good rubbing, works well to soften them up. I would also remark that after using a soft towel once and drying it, the terrycloth also becomes hard :)

blowski2• 2 years ago

Many British houses are already damp and small, and heating them to dry clothes doesn’t save energy. Putting clothes outside when it’s -2 degrees or raining consistently also doesn’t help.

I think I’ve seen the kinds of indoor drying lines you are perhaps referring to, but I don’t know how compatible they are with Northern Europe.

bennyhill• 2 years ago

Drying in freezing temperatures actually works just fine, wet environments are really a problem though.

ajuc5• 2 years ago

Dunno what counts as "Northern Europe", but in Poland nobody uses powered dryers, it's all natural. And it gets to -20 C in the winter here sometimes. Dry cold is not actually a problem for drying clothes.

cyberax• 2 years ago

Clothes can dry just fine when it's -30C outside, especially if there's some sunlight. It's the humidity that is a problem.

xandrius2• 2 years ago

Really depends on a million factors.

Where I grew up if you left the clothes out (but covered with inclement weather), depending on season, they would either dry perfectly or get a funky (awful) smell to them. I wish we had a drier back then, it would have made my teenage years less embarrassing.

pxc• 2 years ago

The engineering part that's missing is related to re-introducing and improving the many awesome laundry line systems that used to be available.

I live in a desert, and my current place has a not-tiny yard, so I'm curious about this. Anyone got examples or pictures of laundry line systems they really like?

lolinder2• 2 years ago

thereby cutting the loss caused by "dumb" dryers.

The loss that TFA and smart dryers are trying to cut is time spent on laundry. Having lived both with and without a tumble dryer, I'm very skeptical that there's a laundry line system out there that is less time consuming than even a dumb tumble dryer.

If there is one, I'd love a link!

latentcall• 2 years ago

We have clothes lines in our backyard and hang drying clothing is the bees knees. For one, dryers tend to ruin clothing. When I didn't know any better I'd dry black t-shirts on lowest heat setting and they're all washed out and didn't keep their color.

For some items like wool underwear and t-shirts I hang inside because sun bleaching can be a problem.

dzhiurgis2• 2 years ago

Sun bleaches black clothing too. Plus it’s essentially 2-3 extra steps. A good quality 2 in 1 washer/dryer in a bad climate/limited space is a perfect fit for busy people.

kkfx• 2 years ago

This is a good example why I hate both 99% of IoT available on sale AND HA as well... Anything simple demand a wall of text, convoluted reasoning, absent or badly documented stuff and so on.

This is a similar example JUST to get a water leak notification from a user-friendly device (by user friendly means no crappy proprietary protocols and services imposed, local as a first class usage etc) https://kfx.fr/posts/shellyfloodandha/ and just to use such automation to automatically close a motorized valve witch actually just provide 4 power wires (ground, phase on "close", phase on "open" and "neutral) is another wall of YAML.

Essentially 99% of commercial IoT seems to be designed just to impress illiterate people with colors and so on, not much differently than older merchants on "savage peoples" selling colored glass like gold, and without any ideas about a real practical usage and integration of useful features.

Personally about most kitchen appliance I cry for maximizing p.v. self-consumption, since it's the sole technically sound way to use p.v., for instance ovens, dishwasher, washing machines, dryers can be "left ready to run" for a significant amount of time, all we need to maximize self-consumption is coordinate their power usage: ovens start to consume for a certain amount of time, than just keep hot with short time heating, washing machines tend to heat one or two time maximum for a certain (variable) amount of time, dishwasher tend to heat more times, but all can delay a bit their power loads, if they offer a cheap ModBUS or a less cheap but not so expensive MQTT card AS AN OPTION to be plugged behind the machine or even a kind of "smart plug" that actually just a local powerline device communicating to the internal electronics, coordinate their run from HA would be simple. No one seems to have though about such usage. Water heaters? Similarly, even most modern heat pump water heaters take into account just delaying consumption looking at grid energy price, no real integration with p.v., cars? Even worse: 99% of BEV support DC direct charging, actually most p.v. inverters supporting a battery support 400V batteries, the very same voltage of most cars nowadays, so why the hell not offer a simple home charge socket DC-to-DC to avoid double conversion DC-AC-DC with significant loss in the process? AFAIK only one vendor do so, but NOT integrated with any P.V. they just use "fast charging" as a bidirection bridge to offer V2H for cars do not support such usage (like MOST cars on sale).

cjk2• 2 years ago

Meh I just leave my shit in the dryer when it's done.

xandrius2• 2 years ago

This seems exactly the same approach as the rice cooker post. Maybe inspired?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39902207

firloop• 2 years ago

Yes, I had the same thought. Suspicious or coincidental.

badgerbbbadger8• 2 years ago

Coincidental. Probably a case of this being one of the simpler solutions to implement. Convergent problem solving? (like how in evolution different species can converge on the same trait?)

badgerbbbadger8• 2 years ago

It wasn't inspired but thanks for the link! If I had known of the device notification integration, I would have just used that instead of trying to roll my own logic :D

secabeen• 2 years ago

You also can take a lot of it out of the manual config by creating an input_select with various options to track the operational state of the dryer (Off, Drying, Finished), then use traditional automations to trigger switches between opstates and notifications based on opstate change. There are many threads on the HA forums and community about how to do this.

bobchadwick• 2 years ago

I roughly followed this approach: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/clothes-dryer-automati.... It worked surprisingly well, but the battery died in the sensor and I guess I didn't see enough value in getting the notifications so I never bothered changing it.

culebron212• 2 years ago

Mechanical kitchen timer will suffice. You usually know the duration of most used programs. Doesn't need a hundred taps in the phone to get it working. Mental effort to set the timer is lower than with phone timer. You dial it and carry in a pocket. Zero distraction when you set it up or get notified -- you won't sink into the timer scrolling for half an hour. And in the end you'll get the notification.

ziddoap• 2 years ago

Also not as fun or educational.

badgerbbbadger8• 2 years ago

Mainly this. The project taught me a lot, was a good way to have material to work further on my blogging skills and will hopefully lay a foundation for more interesting projects in the future.

reyostallenberg• 2 years ago

Working, but so boring. For some of us it's nice to build needles stuff instead of using a better (but boring) solution ;) I like the needles stuff, you like the mechanical 'easy' solution

msrenee2• 2 years ago

I was wondering what was going on in their life that the alert sound from the washer and dryer weren't sufficient for the purpose. My GE dryer sings a happy "laundry's dry" song when it's finished.

You're right though, this way is more fun.

theshrike792• 2 years ago

I would need to remember to set the timer every time.

This solution is fully automated.

mbil2• 2 years ago

Hah, this reminds me of one of the first programs I wrote for personal use. My Macbook at the time had an accelerometer or gyro of some kind. So I made a program to monitor the output from that sensor, and it would send me an email when the motion stopped. I'd run the program, set the laptop on top of my running dryer, and go upstairs. In retrospect it was probably not smart to leave a laptop on top of the dryer for an hour :)

badgerbbbadger8• 2 years ago

This is one of the most bodgy things I've come across and I love it! Did you end up replacing it with something else?

mbil2• 2 years ago

Ended up just replacing it with a timer, which was good enough. The main reason was that I wanted to use my computer while the laundry was drying.

rzzzt• 2 years ago

Sudden motion sensor for detecting klonks from eg. a fall so the HDD can put the heads somewhere safer. It was also used to generate lightsaber sounds: https://youtu.be/phcXNisiD8w

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

Make an app that does this and people can tape their old cell phone to it and report. Could just work with sound if no accelerometer/gyro.

marcinzm2• 2 years ago

I did something similar except I used a vibration sensor since we have shared laundry for the floor. When doing laundry we take the sensor and then stick it, using the magnets glued to the back, onto the dryer/washer. The distance drops the signal strength of the sensor which is what tells the automation that clothes washing/drying is in progress. Once vibration has stopped it knows that the laundry is done. Alexa then loudly notifies us of it (great fun if it happens in the middle of an interview) and the e-paper display in the living room shows an alert so we don't forget.

yjftsjthsd-h3• 2 years ago

Is that a product you bought or something you made yourself? I've been wanting something like that but haven't figured out how to get it

marcinzm2• 2 years ago

I used a YoLink vibration sensor. The lack of a local mode for YoLink is a big negative but there's also Zigbee vibrations sensors. The positive is that in my experience YoLink has been very reliable across the board while Zigbee has been hit or miss. Also unlike other cloud based services (ie: Kasa for example) they provide a MQTT integration so there's very low latency.

pengaru• 2 years ago

smart, you could probably do the same thing with a cheap piezoelectric microphone / transducer (actually I wouldn't be surprised if a vibration sensor is basically just that) plugged into an audio line-in port on an RPi running the show.

jchw3• 2 years ago

I've wanted to do this sort of thing for a while, but I am a bit concerned about using many of the smart plugs on the market with large motors, and I assume most dryers contain a fairly large electric motor (not sure how large.) I'm in the midwest U.S., so my dryer is a gas dryer; so presumably, the only real thing being driven off the electricity is indeed a micro-controller and a fairly large motor of some kind.

I can find very few smart plugs that specifically advertise the ability to handle inductive loads, which makes a ton of sense of course, since I think that winds up needing relatively expensive MOSFETs and circuit design more advanced than I can really understand to be robust. I think the best recommendation I've seen is to simply not use smart plugs for inductive loads at all, and instead use other methods to either measure current or implement switching.

I'm a bit afraid to use most any of these smart plugs. I have a couple Zigbee ones that seem to work fine but I am only trusting them with relatively small resistive loads for now since it feels dicey to put anything serious on them.

yjftsjthsd-h3• 2 years ago

and instead use other methods to either measure current or implement switching.

Yeah, I keep meaning to look at clamp style measurement. That doesn't give you control, of course, but I'm mostly interested in finding out how much power larger appliances are actually using (my dryer is pure electric).

chongli5• 2 years ago

A current clamp meter will not tell you anything unless you break out the individual wires you want to measure. Having both live and neutral running through the clamp will cause the electric field of the neutral to cancel out the field of the live whenever the device draws current, so the meter will be unable to read anything.

kabouseng• 2 years ago

You can either wire a relay yourself, your smart plug just switches the relay, and you can size the relay according to your needs.

Or use smart switches made for geysers. Something like the sonoff pow3 can handle up to 5.5kW. Since it is just a relay inside I am pretty sure it can handle inductive loads fine.

https://sonoff.tech/product/diy-smart-switches/powr3/

MisterBiggs• 2 years ago

I tried automating a portable A/C unit using a smart plug and I can confirm that the large power draw will eventually burn them out. The post does mention Shelly which is a brand I would trust for this sort of thing assuming they have a product with the right rating.

js2• 2 years ago

Some folks have success with vibration sensors:

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/blue-print-to-work-wit...

chongli5• 2 years ago

I don't think it's an issue for this application with a dryer because it's not cutting power to a running motor.

The problem with switching an inductive load using a small relay (like the ones in smart plugs) is that the magnetic field collapses in the motor as soon as the relay contacts open. This causes a very large flyback voltage to build across the contacts as the relay is still in the process of opening (mechanically driven by a spring) and so you get arcing which damages the contacts and results in carbon deposits (with higher resistance than clean metal).

In this application the smart plug is already switched on (contacts closed) when the dryer is started and the smart plug doesn't switch off while the dryer is running. Instead, the smart plug's only job is to monitor the power usage of the dryer and send a notification when it drops below 10W.

jchw3• 2 years ago

Hmmm.... That's a valid point that I didn't consider. I guess if the relay remains closed all the time, inductive loads shouldn't really be any trouble. It still does seem a little sketchy, though.

hinkley2• 2 years ago

Gas dryers often run 120V because they’re only running a small blower and a motor to spin the drum. You’re probably in much better shape to find an inline unit that can handle that amperage.

First gas dryer I could find at best buy: LG 7.4 cu ft (beefy boy) needs 11.5 amps. I’d be shocked if you can’t find a 15A smart plug.

jtriangle4• 2 years ago

Temperature sensor, tape it to the exhaust duct, when temp falls below X for Y minutes, send an alert, sleep until temp rises above Z.

Super simple, cannot be fooled if your values for XYZ are set appropriately.

amelius• 2 years ago

I love the enormous artistic effort the author put in the images.

seeknotfind• 2 years ago

All 3.8MB of the cover image are appreciated by me :)

BugsJustFindMe2• 2 years ago

There are two cover images on the page, for 8.3MB total. It's pretty wild.

zamadatix• 2 years ago

Is it not just the output of some "laundry room in the style of Van Gogh" prompt? Looks great, just not sure that's an indication of effort these days. Several non-sensical sections aren't cleaned up for example.

dylan604• 2 years ago

I really like the fact that the inside of the dryer is deeper than the housing of the unit itself. If we're going magical, let's just go full on magician's hat, Felix's bag of trix (or Harry Potter for those too young for Felix).

williamcotton2• 2 years ago

Would you be as salty if it was free clipart or stock photos?

BugsJustFindMe2• 2 years ago

If the free clipart or stock photos were 8.3 megabytes for two images on the web that don't add any meaning to the page? Yes.

lowbloodsugar• 2 years ago

We decided to buy fancy WiFi washer and dryer for our new house. Apparently to meet the latest bullshit energy requirements, our dryer does so by not completely drying things.

So now I put it on timed dry, and that means I can just start a 60 minute timer on my watch.

valicord2• 2 years ago

Not to knock other people's hobbies, but our dryer plays a loud jingle when done, no Internet connection required. Do other models not have this feature?

fragmede• 2 years ago

How loud is that jingle, and how small is your house? for some, the dryer is located in a basement, far away enough that no such jingle, or buzzer can be heard in the rest of the house.

smugglerFlynn• 2 years ago

Solution is quite simple - rewire the dryer's jingle circuit to electrically trigger play for a pre-recorded "Hey Alexa! Notify my owner that drying is complete" cassette record on an old portable Walkman. Install Amazon speaker nearby to react on this.

valicord2• 2 years ago

Fairly loud and fairly large (can be heard on another floor), but I'll admit I didn't consider the basement scenario (since I don't have one)

astura• 2 years ago

Most do, but basements and garages are a common location for dryers, both are usually out of the way enough that it's very difficult to hear the sound in the living quarters.

gavinsyancey• 2 years ago

This is a common feature, but somehow mine does not do this. I didn't pick it out; my landlord did. Not surprised they cheaped out on literally everything.

dfc• 2 years ago

The thing that I am not sure of is why it's so important to know when the dryer finishes? And if it's that important how does it slip your mind that the 45 dryer cycle started at the top of the hour?

Is it a kids thing?

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

“Modern” dryers will vary their run time and stop once they stop sensing some threshold of humidity in exhaust air.

A load of jeans will take longer than a polyester shirt load.

jtriangle4• 2 years ago

Wrinkles. If you yank your clothes out of the dryer and get them hung while they're still warm, they don't wrinkle nearly as much than if you let them cool down in a heap in the drier.

45 minutes is more than enough time to get thoroughly engrossed in a myriad of activities, so, easy to forget, and not all drier cycles are predictable. Timed dry is, but, anything smarter than that isn't (and most driers still in service are smarter).

SkyPuncher2• 2 years ago

For me, I want to know when to switch the Washington the dryer. I both tend to forget and do all of my laundry in a single day.

I want to build something like this that reminds me many times that I need to switch the laundry.

SkyPuncher2• 2 years ago

My laundry is behind a door on the far end of the house to keep the droning down. It’s pretty easy to miss the ding - especially if the Tv or music is playing.

andrewfromx• 2 years ago

definitely thought this was about code and "don't repeat yourself". I thought it was going to talk about how it's not necessary to make sure your code is 100% dry it's ok to repeat yourself sometimes. Which it is. Specially while waiting your clothes to dry.

NortySpock• 2 years ago

For those wanting this convenience on a dumb washing machine, I used a single smart plug flashed with Tasmota firmware to monitor when the power draw dropped to zero. Notifications through Home Assistant.

Not affiliated, just a happy customer of:

https://cloudfree.shop/product/cloudfree-smart-plug-runs-tas...

thechao• 2 years ago

CloudFree is great, but I wish I'd been able to pitch the name 'clearsky' to them. I hate, I do mean loathe, all of these cloudy smart things. So... I'm pretty pleased you posted this. Now, I just gotta figure out what the heck "Tasmota" is.

mewse-hn• 2 years ago

My experience was Tasmota:

I won some smart plugs at a work event, and I'm not a smart home guy so I brought them home and figured out how to set them up. They required a vendor specific smartphone app. I was less than impressed. I wouldn't be able to set up any automations because this thing had to dial home to some shitty vendor cloud lock-in thing.

I looked into how to load open firmware onto the smart switches, and I discovered I'd basically have to destroy the plastic shell of the device to get access to the circuit board, desolder the wifi control module and solder in a new module that was compatible with Tasmota, which is the standard open source firmware for these devices.

What was much easier was to buy Sonoff S31 smart switches because they are able to be disassembled without cutting and grinding the shell away. Then I reprogrammed them using a 3d printed clip with pogo pins - flashing the Tasmota firmware so that I could do whatever I wanted with them.

Easier still would be to buy smart plugs with Tasmota pre-flashed.

deadbunny• 2 years ago

For the UK folks I've bought some pre-flashes plugs from https://www.mylocalbytes.com/ and been happy.

birdman3131• 2 years ago

Now I understand using HA if you are trying to keep it all off the internet but this is all doable in the shelly app itself.

May be a better way of doing it but off hand you can do it with 2 scenes.

Scene 1. If power consumption > 100w for 5 minutes turn scene 2 on.

Scene 2. If power draw less than 5w for more than a minute. send notification to phone. Turn off scene 2.

time0ut• 2 years ago

Cool hack and enjoyable read.

The smart plug idea is slick. I like the idea of decoupling the smart from the appliance. I'd much rather all my appliances be dumb.

In the US, you'd have to get a 240 volt smart plug. Are there any reputable ones?

For the laundry use case, I just set an alarm on my phone though...

hunter2_• 2 years ago

In the US, you'd have to get a 240 volt smart plug

For the 75% that use electric. 25% use gas with 120V motor/control.

JohnTheNerd• 2 years ago

If you are scared of messing with electricity like I am, instead of using power monitoring, another viable but less reliable option is to use vibration sensors.

I picked up a simple Zigbee vibration sensor for less than 20$, taped it on top of the washer/dryer, and connected it to HomeAssistant using Zigbee2MQTT. After creating two automations to detect start/stop based on continuous vibrations over a few minutes, I had the notifications working the exact same way.

hinkley2• 2 years ago

I don’t know about economical but there are devices that sense current flow in a line without a tap, just from the EM fields. People with wood shops use these to automatically turn on the dust collection system when any power tool is turned on.

Between small production sizes and the relay there are probably cheaper DIY solutions. OP is just using a smart plug, so no real electronics involved.

gambiting2• 2 years ago

The problem with those is that they only work if they are wrapped around a live wire, not live and neutral. So unless you have exposed L/N wires in your cable, it's not going to work at all.

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

These clamp on systems may not work too well on North American 240V circuits like a dryer since the emf will cancel, no? You have two 120V feeds exactly 180 degrees out of phase with eachother. Unless you unravel the wires a bit and just clamp a single conductor.

Or maybe I have this all wrong.

throwitaway222• 2 years ago

I'm just staring at the artwork (dalle I'm assuming?)

Is It Dry Yet?

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