from Hacker News

Jeff Geerling won't connect his dishwasher to your stupid cloud [video]

by nikodunk on 4/6/25, 6:16 PM with 29 comments

  • by gnabgib on 4/6/25, 6:21 PM

    Discussion (1006 points, 13 days ago, 661 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43463200

  • by slavik81 on 4/6/25, 7:12 PM

    This was almost my experience when my dishwasher died last year. When looking for reviews and advice, everyone recommended Bosch. However, when I saw it had WiFi, I baulked. After a lot of humming and hawwing, I decided against the Bosch 500 solely because I didn't want a dishwasher with WiFi. The saleslady thought I was crazy.

    Instead, I got an equivalently priced KitchenAid KDFM404KPS1 and am quite happy with it, with only minor quibbles. One of the wheels on the bottom rack is attached to a movable row of prongs, and if you push the row too hard in the wrong direction, you can knock the wheel off. You can just pop the wheel back on, but it's an occasional mild annoyance. Aside from that, I have no complaints.

  • by wildrhythms on 4/6/25, 7:56 PM

    What scares me is if these appliances will connect to any open network in order to phone home without the user's consent.

  • by api on 4/6/25, 8:32 PM

    Only regulation can fix this, because for the company it's nothing but upside. They can double-dip by selling data, gather data on their users, etc. There is no downside. There are nowhere near enough knowledgeable people who will balk at this stuff, and even if there are it won't matter if/when everyone does it.

    All economic incentives encourage maximum invasion of user privacy. That's almost universally true in my experience.

  • by RobKohr on 4/11/25, 4:48 PM

    Yep, I got the same exact dishwasher because it was highly rated, and noped out of connecting it to the cloud.

    The only buttons I press though are power and start. Just make my dishes clean oh magic cleaning box.

    I also hate the touch buttons too. My favorites were the old washers with the big clicking square block buttons. I also like for the modes when you pushed one down, the others would pop up.

    Of course this was about 40 years ago, and such things are ancient history.

  • by FloatArtifact on 4/6/25, 7:45 PM

    Your appliances are your next smart TV.

  • by FloatArtifact on 4/6/25, 7:44 PM

    You know, my GE oven won't do the air frying mode without Wi-Fi.

  • by paulddraper on 4/6/25, 9:12 PM

    “I can’t wash the dishes because the Internet is out”