Re: White goods

[Kim Wall <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Hunter wrote:
> 'has anyone connected HA into the various White Goods (washing
machine,
> dishwasher, oven, fridge, freezer, etc) we all have around the house,
I
> wonder - to allow, at the very least, auto start & stop, and some
sort
> of feedback on state-of-play ....

I've yet to do any of this, but a few thoughts spring to mind:

Fridge/freezer: A couple of temperature sensors, monitor the door
switches and compressor on//off status.  All pretty simple to do.

Washing machine/dishwasher:  Depends heavily on the specific model.  At
a basic level, delayed/remote on/off could be done by a relay across the
mains supply or 'start' button.  Status monitoring could be relatively
easy if there's a nice panel of blinkenlights to tap into, not sure how
you'd do it with a mechanical dial jobby.  Perhaps the supply to various
internal components (valves, heater, pump, drum motor) could be
monitored, and compared against a known sequence for each cycle?   I
strongly suspect the elegant solution would involve completely
re-engineering the control circuitry with automation in mind (perhaps
easier than it sounds if you're replacing a mechanical controller?).

Oven: Either going to be a case of some nice chunky relays for basic
on/off control or interfacing with some digital controller gubbins.
Temperature and power monitoring as per everything else.  Not sure about
gas... pulse-output gas meter?

Kettle: Theoretically just a chunky relay[1], but this assumes someone's
left the kettle full of water and in the 'on' position.  Maybe a posh
electronic kettle with a soft 'on' switch would be easier.  Or a coffee
machine.  Temperature and water level monitoring would be nice (perhaps
one could be extrapolated from the other, given ambient temperature /
time-of-last-boiling?).  Colour-changing kettle + webcam? :)


Kim.

[1]  Actually, when I was doing stage lighting at school, we would have
a backstage kettle ready-to-go on a spare 2.4kW dimmer channel, with an
appropriate cue for the LX operator in the final scene before the interval.