- Put clothes in washer.
- 36 hours later, realize never put clothes in dryer! Aww crap… gonna need to wash again.
- Investigate. Discover never started washer, clothes never got wet.
- Victory…?
I have an old washer and dryer that work. I don’t want to replace them with smart devices. I DO want to get a text whenever they’re done with their cycles. Any ideas how to make that happen?
I have the skill set, but not the free time or interest. I LITERALLY might do this though (I’m this kind of weird hacker)…
- Get an old Android phone (I have like 5, I don’t know how many would charge, but probably 2 would). Duct tape it to your washer.
- Write an app that queries the accelerometer and detects jiggling.
- Wait 2 minutes. If there’s more jiggling, start the 2 minutes over.
- When there’s no jiggling for 2 minutes, send a push notification.
- Figure out how long it runs
- Set a timer for that long
I’m not usually the one setting it unfortunately.
ADHD person here.
I installed Home Assistant on a small RPi and used a Wifi plug.I then I used one of the many blueprints that basically says “If power is over 5amp, and then stop for 5 minutes and under 5amps, then send a message to your phone”.
Not exactly easy, but its really fun.
I do have HA, but never thought of that. Thanks! I’m going to see if anyone sells that sort of sensor prebuilt.
https://youtu.be/q6aCfDDEkwE?si=XXlizUALgTh8Bi_U
There are now blueprints that make it extra easy but this guy sets it up manually and even installed it on your smart speakers.