Many of us have them, few of us really hack on them: well, here we’re talking about large home appliances. [Severin von Wnuck-Lipinski] and [Hajo Noerenberg] were both working on washing machines, found each other, and formed a glorious cooperation that ended in the unholy union of German super-brands Miele and B/S/H — a Miele washer remote controlled by Siemens’ web app.
This talk, given at the 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3), is about much more than the stunt hack, however. In fact, we covered [Severin]’s work on the very clever, but proprietary, Miele Diagnostic Interface a little while ago. But now, he’s got it fully integrated into his home automation system. It’s a great hack, and you can implement it without even opening the box.
About halfway through the talk, [Hajo] takes over, dissecting the internal D-Bus communication protocol. Here, you have to open up the box, but then you get easy access to everything about the internal state of the machine. And D-Bus seems to be used in a wide range of B/S/H/ home appliances, so this overview should give you footing for your own experimentation on coffee machines or dishwashers as well. Of course, he wires up an ESP32 to the bus, and connects everything, at the lowest level, to his home automation system, but he also went the extra mile and wrote up a software stack to support it.
It’s a great talk, with equal parts humor and heroic hacking. If you’re thinking about expanding out your own home automation setup, or are even just curious about what goes on inside those machines these days, you should absolutely give it a watch.
Editor Note: The “S” is Siemens, which is Hackaday’s parent company’s parent company. Needless to say, they had nothing to do with this work or our reporting on it.
…and for a split second I thought that the machines are running Linux with DBus :)
They do ;)
on newer devices…
b/s/h??
https://www.bsh-group.com/
Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte (at least that used to be the name)
Bosch Siemens Hausgeräte
My washing machine (& matching dryer) were made in 1968, by Whirlpool, and they work by turning a knob and then pushing a button. They somehow manage to do this without an internet connection. I don’t really feel that they need to do anything more than wash clothes and dry clothes. I don’t need them to send me an email or show me ads or recommend sponsored products or do anything on any kind of schedule.
The dryer shredded one of its two belts about 8 years ago, I replaced both while I was in there because why not. The washer as far as I know has never needed any kind of service whatsoever since it left the factory.
MAYTAG, not Whirlpool! Jeezus, something going on between my brain and keyboard lately.
Yes I have my mums old Speed Queen that she got new when I was born 47 years ago
Same feelings here. I’ve got a pair of Kenmores not quite that old, but they predate this millennium. I like having appliances that don’t have a single semiconductor in them. Fridge, freezer, washer, dryer all have given great service for decades, and none of them has as much as a diode in them.
The dryer gets a new belt and drum sliders/bushings every decade or two. The washer got a new set of pawls after 25 years. That’s it, other than proactively replacing the old (original) fill hoses last year. “Replace every five years” they had written on them!
The Bosch dishwater is less than 20 years old and has had four significant repairs in that time, two of those being the electronics. (and one leaky fill valve and one clogged pipe).
This is hackaday, a blog about doing things, not curmudgeonaday, a blog about not doing things because you’re too fossilized.
I disagree; it’s a blog about finding better solutions and an internet-enabled washing machine is a solution in search of a problem. Disposable gadgets are more profitable than something that just works, which is why disposable gadgets are the only kind of appliance you’re allowed to buy today. I think that’s a bad thing no matter how well it plays Doom.
Problem fix; My B/S/H washing machine is in the attic, and I quite like it’s wifi feature which I have used to make my own custom display on the ground floor which shows how long till the end of the washing, and it nicely plays an end-tune. It uses local network, not cloud.
Ironically the cheapest way to do that is an old security camera ($5), and a free app.
The old machines use mechanical switches that are the weakest part of the machine and will fail and are expensive to replace and probably unavailable. The newer ones use no mechanical switches.
I bet that in 10 years will be way easier to replace that ancient switch, that the highly integrated piece of silicon and his bits and bytes that are stored inside.
The “mechanical switch” is actually just a timer operating 6-8 switches. Since the program is mapped out on a diagram inside the washing machine I gave a few minutes thought to using an off-the-shelf relay board ($16) and a microcontroller to work the relays. Then no matter what part failed you could replace it cheaply. In fact the relay boards come with many extra relays, so a failed relay could be re-wired to another relay for no cost.
In the end I gave up and bought a used timer for $95. But when the washer developed a leak I couldn’t find I saved the timer (and pump, and motor) and bought another used washer for $100.
The same-ish machines were made until 20 years ago. Parts interchangeable, could be branded Kenmore or Maytag, but all built by whirlpool.
I continue to fix my own. There is no way I am wasting the $1,000 in savings on a washing machine, that money is better served for when my car transmission fails.
It is not needless to say, and that’s why you had to say it.