First thing I do when I get a smart appliance is scan it with nmap. This has revealed some interesting Easter eggs, like my Davis instruments air quality sensors having a local REST API.
Doing the usual scan against my GE washer and dryer shows that port 53 is listening. What could that be for? Is there a way I can at least query their status locally or something?
When I got the washer and dryer I was excited about the smart home features because getting an alert when my laundry is done or starting the washer remotely so the clothes are done when I get home are genuinely useful features. However, last time I checked the app none of that was available, so I just have these Trojan horses in my home spying on me with no benefit in exchange. Their app wanted my freaking mailing address when I signed up for their mandatory account, so the features mentioned above are the least they could offer in exchange for my digital soul. But I digress.
My fridge is in a similar situation. It commits the additional cardinal sin of ONLY being controllable via the app, with no on-board temp or filter status indicators whatsoever.
For those who are saying I shouldn’t have bought these half-baked smart appliances, I agree. But I wasn’t always this aware of the privacy issues involved. The washer and dryer were purchased before I grasped how problematic cloud-connected always online IoT devices are, and as mentioned in the OP the ability to tell me when my laundry was done seemed like a genuinely useful feature. In the case of the fridge it was an emergency replacement and we took what fit the preexisting niche in our kitchen, and the complete lack of output on the fridge itself necessitated the app.
Set up a pihole on your network and add a few block lists. If your IoT appliances phone home at least you can block the traffic and monitor what things phone home.
As for buying appliances that are not smart, It takes extra effort and a trade-off in features.
For example, my toothbrush has Bluetooth in it. if I want a non-Bluetooth toothbrush I’d have to get a lower quality model because they simply don’t make one without it.
Most people buy whatever’s on sale, And considering how expensive home appliances are they usually put the expensive featured models on sale since there’s a bigger margin.
So if I wanted to get a basic one with less features, that’s not smart it would actually be more expensive because it will never go on sale.
Upon installation LG’s app helpfully informed me that to be notified that my LG refrigerator temperature is high or my washer’s cycle is complete I am expected to inform a Korean company of my exact location at all times. The reason LG gives for this bullshit is “analytics”. There is no way in hell.
I disconnected my LG appliances from wifi, deleted their spyware from my phone and duplicated the functions with Home Assistant. A couple of inexpensive sensors and a power monitoring plug provide almost all same functions without getting Korea (or the Internet) involved at all. Surprisingly this setup is much more reliable than LG’s spyware too.
Which sensors did you use? I like how the oven can display how many minutes left, same with the laundry stuff.
For the washer a smart plug with power monitoring. The current draw goes to almost zero when the cycle’s finished. A Zigbee vibration sensor for the dryer (or another smart plug if it’s a gas dryer) and temperature sensor for the fridge. All in they were less than $20.
I’ll have to try that smart plug idea. I have some heavy duty Z-wave plugs I used for Christmas decorations last year and that would work great for the fridge.
That’s called a CCD ;-)
Learned something today, thanks! CCD is the type of screen that’s likely on these types of devices.
A CCD is generally one of two types of camera/imaging device. I was kinda being as ass, like point a camera at the countdown on your washing machine.
That said, I’m reasonably certain I’ve seen something on the HA forum where someone did exactly that. Frigate NVR to dump a screenshot every few seconds and OCR app to create an actionable counter in HA.
Maybe for mDNS so the app can discover the appliance.
Or the old fashion way, don’t BUY them.
Seriously. The dryer needs a mandatory account?
That’d be a No.
The trouble is, you don’t know how bad the shit is until after you get it home, unless you do a large amount of research beforehand.
Frankly, at this point I think the better tactic is to buy the smart appliances and then return them as “not fit for purpose,” even though that takes even more effort, because it punishes the manufacturer in a way that merely not buying the thing in the first place does not.
Read the device manuals online. It usually tells you what you need to know
is checking the thing’s fucking spec sheet intensive research? do you get AI summaries of your own shopping list?
Show me where the spec sheet for a typical smart appliance tells me if it has a good integration with Home Assistant, whether I can flash it with ESPHome, etc.
Usually spec sheets only talk about a bunch of proprietary bullshit I don’t give a fuck about (or actively don’t want).
You can find out about home assistant support on the home assistant webpages.
It doesn’t take much effort to take an appliance model number and Google it to see the features list. People are just stupid and don’t bother to spend even 5 minutes researching their large purchases.
The information on whether it runs its own DNS isn’t on the “features list.” Or information about what microcontroller it’s running and whether it’s possible to flash with third-party firmware. Hell, even information on compatibility with Home Assistant itself usually isn’t on it! Features lists never include the sorts of information people like us care about in a smart appliance.
i have to wonder if people even research the things they buy or if they just walk into the store with 2000€ and say “give me a washing machine”, and never see the machine until the crew comes home to install it.
It’s an expensive piece of machinery that is going to be a core part of your home for like 10 years, check the manual and online reviews to make sure it doesn’t have a major flaw you’d be unhappy with, please.
Yea, I don’t understand sales either. I drive into the BIG city and pass a new car lot that has a sign on the sidewalk that says “Ford truck month”.
I want to know WHO is driving down the street and SEES that sign then thinks to themselves “OH, I forgot to buy a truck this month”?
The sign was there for half a year.
Those messages are not aimed at everyone passing by. They are aimed at people already considering buying a truck and hope to influence their decision.
Last month the rapture, and this month I have to buy a truck? When does it end?!
If you want your fridge to tell you its temp, just slap your own temp sensor in it. Put a mic by your laundry machine to detect the buzzer and alert you. DIY all the things, don’t give these “smart” appliance companies money to spy on you.
Laundry machine can be monitored reliably with a smart socket.
Here is a blueprint for HomeAssistant that has been working well: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/detect-and-monitor-the-state-of-an-appliance-based-on-its-power-consumption-v2-1-1-updated/421670
@okamiueru
For over one year now Homeassistant has been reliably announcing the end of the cycle by flashing all smart lights in RV before switching them back to their original state. What i like most is the fact that with the same reliability the washer beeps thirty seconds later.That’s cool. We do it the boring way of getting a notification to the hassio app. It unfortunately uses google’s notification api, and I’m not too happy with Google knowing when I do laundry.
The only issue I see is that getting most sensors to work in the fridge/freezer is difficult for 2 reasons, the cold fucks with the batteries and the metal body of the fridge fucks with the signal.
I just used zigbee and put a repeater right next to the fridge. The big ass coin cells in the sonoff temp sensors are lasting around 6 months. Would probably be longer but I have the sensor with a screen in there.
Obviously YMMV if you have a SubZero or something, but in my jankey LG it works fine.
Simple, just drill a hole into the fridge and use a probe from outside.
/s just in case
It is a legit strategy.
Or just use thin enamelled copper wire connected to the sensor and tape it down where the door closes, no drilling required.
Yeah I’ve got a multimeter that could do it, but you would need to be careful drilling through to not hit any of the cooling jackets
Home brewers are looking at you very oddly right now.
Yep my beer fridge is exactly this :)
Home brewers just set the fridge thermostat as cold as it goes and set the temp externally by turning the power off when it’s cold enough.
Not sure i’d drill a hole into my nice-looking kitchen fridge though. Probably rather than connect it to WiFi, but… I don’t currently see a need to connect it to wifi anyway?
@southernbrewer
I‘m not a Home brewer but three of our fridges get the same treatment as their primitive „thermostats„ are so crappy. Two simply were either too cold or not cold enough with a ridiculous amount of variation while the third one, an outdoor fridge-freezer combo has the thermostat in the fridge compartment and during cool nights sees no need to cool while the freezer compartment gets close to thawing.We use a kegerator so the probes just run through the pre-drilled hole for the gas. But really the cables are so thin a standard door seal would close over them
I can see where a temp would be useful to detect failure , but a power draw monitor would do the same
First thing I do when I get a smart appliance is scan it with nmap.
A wonderful habit. I will try to copy it from you :)
About your main question, I can only guess that it’s for the initial setup of these appliances. Initially, they know nothing about your Wifi situation. So maybe they open up their own Wifi and connect their app so that you can enter some info. Afterwards, maybe some services continue to run there…
Þis is exactly correct. Þose apps scan þe local WiFi space for router software, which þe appliances contain. Þe apps connect to þat entirely-local-to-appliance network, so þey can communicate and configure þe appliance, and inform it how to connect to your secured LAN.
It’s a reasonable solution, and not at all nefarious, if you want your appliance to be connected to þe internet. An alternative could be BlueTooth, but þis would be more expensive.
I think your meant BlueTooþ
I don’t use thorn in proper names, or quotes. Unless I’m quoting someone who used thorns, or has thorns in þeir name.
Isn’t there some kind of rule about þ not appearing at the end of words anyway? I feel like I vaguely remember something about that, but I’m not sure.
I don’t know. Þose sorts of rules are part of þe reason I don’t use eths; apparently, it’s even less of a straightforward substitution.
It’d be Blátǫnn anyway
You have a very strong lisp.
your keyboard appears to be broken
What’s up with the th combo? I’ve seen this a lot lately and my search-fu is failing me
If it’s on Lemmy, that’s the same person you’re seeing. They always write like that.
I don’t want to be a dick but I can’t help but think it’s an attention thing. Please notice the quirky thing that I do!
It’s the internet. The only reason anyone posts anything on the internet is “for attention”
So they use a thorn. Big whoop. On the list of sins it’s fuck all.
Please notice the quirky thing that I do!
We have. It’s disgusting. Who hurt you?
(Th)ey think they’re “poisoning AIs” but they’re just annoying humans.
Jokes on them. I used AI to make it human readable:
This is exactly correct. Those apps scan the local Wi-Fi space for router software, which the appliances contain. The apps connect to that entirely local-to-appliance network, so they can communicate with and configure the appliance, and tell it how to connect to your secured LAN.
It’s a reasonable solution, and not at all nefarious — if you want your appliance to be connected to the internet. An alternative could be Bluetooth, but that would be more expensive.
Bringin’ back the thorn
They persist in trying to bring back thorn.
ᛗᛁᚷᚻᛏ ᚪᛋ ᚹᛖᛚᛚ ᚢᛋᛖ ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ
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You forgot the one in Bluetooth
Most appliances connect using a cheap microprocessor like an ESP-32 which provides both WiFi and BLE.
If there’s a DNS server running, it’s usually for mDNS/ZeroConf service discovery. Usually so it can easily get provisioned via a smart speaker or hub.
More details here: https://circuitlabs.net/dns-server-and-dns-sd-implementation/
You mention it’s listening on port 53, but have you actually tried DNS queries to see how it responds? Will it resolve www.google.com or <reverse_ip>.in-address.arpa?
No one needs “smart” appliances. I know it’s fun to get a message telling you your water filter needs replacing, but come on…
Listen man I want smart everything. I want a fridge that tells me if I left the door open and when I last replaced the filter and if the OJ is out and then automatically asks if it should add more OJ to the grocery list.
And this can all be accomplished with modern technology without sending my data to an outside entity. It should be, even if it isn’t. So much of the sci-fi future we used to dream of can be a reality today, we just have to mold it into being.
The fact people trust these devices to not push a replacemnt before it is actually necessary in the name of profit baffles me.
Dumb filters already push for replacements early.
Exactly
It would be a pleasant surprise if that’s the worst thing the device did
I have 2 automations for my washing machine, which start when I put it in remote start mode:
- When the dryer is running it waits until the dryer’s remaining time is less than washing machine’s program ETA
- If the dryer is not running it waits until I’m returning power to the grid before starting the cycle
My HA smartified washer & dryer save us more than an hour every week because we are informed immediately when their cycles are complete. My refrigerator temperature monitor has alerted us more than once that the door wasn’t completely closed saving us hundreds in spoiled food costs. It would do the same if the compressor fails.
Everyone has different needs and sometimes those needs include smart appliance features.
Your fridge door should auto close, man
Ever heard of a timer? Are ya SMART enough for that?
The timers on washers are notoriously inaccurate and moisture sensors make drying timers useless, but if you had your own washer and dryer you might know that.
Your extreme cognitive bias is indicative of someone completely lacking in a sense of sonder. (Look it up, it is certain someone with main character syndrome has never heard the word before.)
Anyway it’s been fun, but we’re done.
…
No.
My shitty fridge from decades ago has never had a problem with the door being open. I say this is clearly a design issue. I open my fridge, let go and step away. It closes slowly and seals. Unless I jam it full of crap being left open isn’t an option.
My clothes washer and dryer make a sound so I am also instantly notified when it is done. Also, washing/drying are not time sensitive like that. I call bullshit on your smart appliance needs.
Egocentric bias - the tendency to focus excessively on one’s own perspective, leading to a distorted view of reality where individuals overestimate their own importance and fail to adequately consider others’ viewpoints. This cognitive bias affects how people recall events and interpret situations, often making them see themselves as the center of attention.
LOL! You actually believe all fridges work exactly like yours? You believe everyone’s laundry is installed within hearing range exactly like yours? Some people even have washers & dryers without audio alerts. The laundry notifications allow us to get 6+ loads done in 1 day rather than 2.
There are millions of households in just the U.S. and nearly every single household is very different than yours. You need to get out more and stop admiring your own navel.
My fridge has a small door in its door so I can exchange less air with its outside if I only need to pull out something that’s on one of door’s shelves. The downside is that unlike the main door (which does auto close) it needs me to push it firmly to close.
In that vein of thinking, nobody needs appliances.
However we are in the home assistant group so I think people are interested in linking things in their house together and controlling them centrally (if “central” does not mean the manufacturer) in an effort to make them smarter.
A port scan and then inspection of the ports is a great habit. Another fun thing to do is to set up WireShark to listen to what your fridge’s IP address is doing. Who is it calling? How often? What services (ports)? While your fridge may have a DNS server, unless it’s been pre-loaded with the internet, it’ll need to query another DNS to reach the outside world. DNS is usually unencrypted, so you can see what it’s asking to connect to.
Many of these devices announce their services via Bonjour or whatever protocol. It’s a way for devices like Alexa to find out that you have a printer, interrogate the printer and then Alexa will tell you that your printer is low on ink and by the way, Amazon has a special sale, just for you.
If anything is unencrypted, check it out (with WireShark). If it is encrypted, there’s a chance that you can hijack it with a proxy server. Set up a SOCKS proxy and add a DNS label (I can’t remember what it is) to tell the devices in your network that you have a proxy. Block the fridge from the internet and see if it will autodetect the proxy. There are other ways to tell devices that your home network requires a proxy via autodetection & wpad.dat files in specific locations on your network. You can configure your proxy to log all traffic, like WireShark does and then see what’s in the payload.
I’ve done this with limited success on various devices. More mature products like Alexa are locked down. Those cheap home cameras from China are pretty hackable.
Have fun!
Both tcp and udp?
Washer dryer and fridge are TCP only
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Manufacturers are literally removing buttons and dials to force functionality to be accessed only through the accompanying “app.”
