“I will not connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud.” That has been Jeff Geerling’s statement of intentions, a well -known YouTuber, after buying a new household appliance for his home. It is something that we are living for years: the condemnation of the products that force us to spy on everything they do because if they do not work as they should theoretically.
Premieving dishwasher. This week Geerling explained in his blog and also in a video on YouTube how he bought a new dishwasher from the Bosch brand. Specifically, one of the 500 series, because I had seen it recommended in Consumer Reports, a well -known organization of consumers and users in the US. After the installation the surprise came: I could not turn it on and put it to work without more.
Wi-Fi and Mandatory Online Account. When trying to start it and start a clarified cycle, Geerling realized that he could not activate that option. After reading the manual he knew why. I needed to do two things first. The first, connect your dishwasher to your domestic Wi-Fi network. The second, create an account in the Bosch Home Connect service, which would allow you to access the option of clarified and some additional options, such as ecological or medium load mode. I could not even use the basic options via Bluetooth for example: it had to connect it to the Wi-Fi network and create the account yes or yes.
If you want screen, it’s time to pay more. The dishwasher that bought this youtuber is a model that costs around $ 1,000. In spite of this – or precisely because of that – it did not have physical buttons, and the controls are tactile and are at the dishwasher door when opening it. There is also no screen that allows you to know how much time it remains for the washing cycle to end, for example. The upper series, the Bosch 800, do have that screen, but there is to pay $ 400.
Why do I need a dishwasher app? As Geerling indicated, a local application with some type of direct wireless connection – but without connection to the outside or the rest of the local network devices – could make sense, but this did not have it. That you have to control virtually all the options and information of your washing machine mandatory through an app and a Wi-Fi connection was absurd according to your opinion. “I don’t need internet in my dishwasher,” he said.
Few and bad options. This YouTuber is a technology expert and is accustomed to finding solutions to these types of problems. He talked about how maybe I could not use those advanced options, but if you spend $ 1,000 in a dishwasher it seems like not strange not to be able to use them. He also thought of using a VLAN network for IoT devices (a separate and isolated network).
Nor hack it compensates too much. There is even an even more technical option, because someone has made reverse engineering of the Bosch protocol and has created a HCPy protocol to control these dishwasher without the manufacturer being able to do anything. However, that would force him to devote several more hours to putting everything in motion and all he wanted was to be able to use his dishwasher in a simple way. And he could return the appliance, but he had also invested time and effort to install it at home.
A dishwasher should not connect to the Internet. For Geerling Bosch’s strategy is an absolute mistake. Among other things because if you depend on an application and a cloud service to use your dishwasher, Bosch will have to manage and maintain that service, which means two things: either they are selling the data of your use of the appliance, or will end up closing the service or migrating it to be a subscription service, something that has happened in similar scenarios.
And a potential security hole. But it is also that a dishwasher is part of your domestic network opens another potential attack vector. If someone manages to find vulnerability in Bosch dishwasher, they will have access to the rest of your local area network. That has also happened. Not one, but several times.
Not everything needs to be connected. Geerling’s conclusion – with which we agree – is that IoT appliances and products should be designed with a maximum: first that they work at home, and then, if perhaps, they work in the cloud as something optional. This dishwasher is an example of a trend that can make sense in some areas, but not of course in this concrete.
Imagen | Jeff Geerling
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