Nice write-up by Jeff.
Things are getting out of hand. It’s time for a change. Only buy equipment with local access.
Just wait until AI enters production. We’ll have “AI powered” dishwashers
I hate how they don’t mention connectivity anymore when buying shit. None of the reviews mention this either that the app has tracking and that you have to pay for stuff. If they do mention it, it’s barely a brief mention of it, and nothing more. I got my van in 2023 and it needs an app but luckily Toyota gives me an option to turn all that shit off so now I have a dumb van supposedly. And I fucking hate vehicles with Wi-Fi. Why the fuck does my vehicle need Wi-Fi? My phone has Wi-Fi.
I’d have taken it back, done and dusted. Make them feel the pain.
I don’t think we should let vendors get away with this stuff.
Yes returning it is a huge hassle. But if you’re not returning it you still bought their product, supported them financially and that product line. Even if they see you not activating cloud features in numbers, others do and they can make very favorable calculations.
The single most effective way to not let them get away with it is returning it. As an unacceptable product.
LG pulls some of this BS too. When I tried it a few years ago, the LG app required always-on precise location permission to function at all. The smart features on my washer and refrigerator also require them to always be connected to the Internet but those features were more limited that what Jeff describes. I was willing to allow the appliances Internet access from an isolated subnet, but there is no way I’m going to allow LG access to all of my phone’s location data just so I can run their crappy, barely functional app.
In Mexico Bosch is even more customer hostile. My Bosch water heater had to be replaced because Bosch discontinued the repair parts needed to fix it. It’s only 3 years old.
This makes me more determined to keep maintaining my old non-computerized appliances.
I have a Samsung fridge and the app is the same - it demands always-on precise location or it refuses to function.
Absolutely. Fucking. Not.
Bosch has a lot of goodwill. Interesting how they decide to spend it. Also Consumer Reports needs to start considering Internet connectivity, because the risks from Internet connected dishwashers are real and scary.
I moved to a new place and it came with one of these.
Besides the inconvenience of essentially paywalling features, it fucking GUZZLES rinse aid and send you notifications about needing more, and it doesn’t rinse it all the way off meaning my dishes need rinsing before drinking out of a glass for example.
Fuck Bosch and fuck Consumer Reports. What an absolute ingot of microplastic pollution someone rammed into my kitchen
Forget rinse aid. Get one of those ramekins you get with some desserts, put in some vinegar and put the dish among the plates at the bottom. Sparklyyyyy.
(I had a Bosch too, now have a Miele)
Isnt this really tough on the dishwasher internals? Corrosively so? Thats why I veered away from this way thus far.
The water is really hard where I live, the limescale pretty much neutralises the vinegar. And a lot of rinse aid is citric acid or vinegar anyway!
Sick, so is my water. I love my well but wow the minerals are insane. Going to steal this tip and use it from now on, thanks!
That’s horrible.
One more time I’m reminded of Unlicensed Bread (C. Doctorow).
BTW the title made me think of car parts. Bosch sell all sorts of stuff.
Oh! The IOT toaster, perhaps a really good analogy! That was a good read and fitting for this situation.
When was it published? 2019/2020 ?? Well, took just 5 years for the corporate greed to get on par.
What made the story so captivating for me is how dystopian yet extremely close to present day reality it is.
Of course that’s what he does: takes already existing situations and weaves them into something eye-opening.
it’s really prescient - one of the stories is people terrorizing healthcare execs for their dead loved ones.
1.5 hours to wash dishes for 5!? Are they a family of snails?
New dishwashers are all slow because of energy/water savings. When I need dishes done fast I use the 60 minute setting that runs everything at full blast.
He must have a fucking ton of dishes. We get a few mugs and bowls every year as Christmas gifts. I have to do periodic cleansing of gift dishes. Lately though, I tell my wife, okay, we got this as a gift. Now we have to put it in the cabinet where it belongs and we have to throw away something else. Do you want to keep this or not bcz we do not have any more space. It usually goes to the trash.
I’m driving a 2007 Citroën. I hope I can find a car without OTA updates when it’s time to upgrade.
I really don’t want a bait-and-switch where I start to get ads on the dashboard at every intersection.
I just buy second hand cars.
Yeah, me, too.
But it feels like all cars made in the last decade have connectivity. I’m not a fan.
deleted by creator
I mostly agree with you, but my ford had a software update (USB not ota) that added Android auto like a year after I bought it. That’s about the only update I’d tolerate
Get the dump stove that’s in the corner of many appliance stores. It looks like it fell out of the fifties but the simple design is much better.
yup. I hate the ‘soft touch’ capacitive sensors on everything now… utter garbage. give me solid chunks of plastic and metal opening and closing solenoids for that satisfying clunk that tells you the machine is going.
i wonder what price point you could hit with 1950’s technology, but without the thick steel… then i wonder about loss of efficiency and safety. im sure someone know of a brand threading this needle in like brazil or somewhere already.
Speed Queen brand still exists and is mostly what you’re describing.
good point, except aiming for a low price point.
I actually really like my Bosch dishwasher + home connect. You can hook it up with home assistant, and use that to run the dishwasher when solar is working.
Local access would be nice, but homeconnect isnt that bad, and has been improving.
As the video explains, if it was optional to add features, that’s fine. But you can’t access basic features like “rinse only” without connecting your dishwasher to their cloud service.
It’s offensive. I got a Bosch last year because my other Bosch is good. I saw the cloud requirements and got enraged too. I should have sent it back. But I had the higher end version that has the time screen and put only the more obscure features behind their cloud revenue extraction.
Fuck Bosch.
Have you considered buying a dishwasher without this connectivity nonsense? They still sell them, you know.
As I said, I didn’t know. I bought the exact same model that I bought the year before that didn’t need an app. I considered returning it but I have kids and dishes to do. I spent hours installing it only to find it wanted an app when I went to use it the first time.
The line between “optional add”, and “base features” will differ per user, so personally, mine can do everything I need it to on the controls, and the cloud stuff is value add.
My only complaint with Bosch is that my washing machine from the same vintage doesn’t have any remote start features, so i can’t run it via homeassistant.
The point here is:
- not all functionality is available as-is. You need to install a cloud connected app.
- a cloud connection is not per se one direction. It is more than possible, the people operating this cloud (for Bosch) have the means (read: api) to connect back into your network via the hardware.
You might take a good look at this work.
As long as the firmware of the dishwasher isn’t audited by third parties (or even better: open source), who knows what it is able to do in your network?
And all of this is not necessary, before the cloud, dishwashers worked fine too.
Dishwashers worked fine as electromechanical devices too. This is all fucking nuts. Mine blew up recently (electromechanical and probably 30 at this point) and I’ll be replacing it with one a family member no longer needs. When it gives up the ghost and if I’ve cleared some garage space by then, I’m minded to take it apart and see how hard it is to reverse engineer the damn thing.
The one way issue is very easily solved (isolated network), and on my model at least, all functionality is available. The app gives more, but everything I need is available on the buttons if I need it.
This is pathetic.
I’m glad you enjoy your home connect. A dishwasher shouldn’t need an internet connection to function. Period. Full stop.
“Just put it on an isolated network” is ridiculous advice, when there shouldn’t even be a need.
Even if you assume there are no vulnerabilities to find, even if you assume their administrators are never evil, the only reason to require cloud service is to invade my privacy and collect data.
That’s it. They’re selling your data. Maybe you are fine with that. We are not.
No need for name calling.
My dishwasher is completely fine without the cloud. Period. Full stop.
There is no need to put it on the network, but if you want to, and are paranoid, you can connect it to an isolated network. If you dont want to, dont, and the dishwasher will work.
There are valid use cases for the networking, beyond data collection, if you dont like it, dont use it. I do like it, and I’d rather support companies that do provide first party homeassistant support.
No one called you any names. They said your advice is ridiculous, but that’s not name calling. That’s critiquing.
They’re not using your dishwasher for your needs, they’re using their dishwasher for their needs. They likely don’t overlap. Different models have different feature sets. One can say that they should have done more research into the home networking requirements for super basic features (as heavily explained in the article that we’re all commenting on, and you seem to have completely ignored), but frankly that’s beside the point. The baseline should not be well below par. The baseline should not be “download our potential spyware that also doesn’t necessarily work very well with your system just so you can use basic features”.
I’m glad you like smart features. I think people should have that kind of flexibility and choice in their home environment. The problem here is that when using this particular appliance, they don’t have that choice. That is a problem. Even if, when you use your appliance, you don’t have that issue, they do. Because they are not you, and do not have the exact same use case that you do.
I still think its unnecessarily rude to call someone’s opinion/experience “pathetic”.
The rest, I absolutely agree with. Its not a Bosch problem, its that specific model of dishwasher for that specific user problem. If I were in their situation, I would return the dishwasher.
My dishwasher is completely fine without the cloud. Period. Full stop.
OP reports loss of functionality. Functions, that are, quite frankly standard features on all not-IoT machines. Functionality which, frankly, you paid for, and which in no way actually require homecontrol to use.
There is no need to put it on the network, but if you want to, and are paranoid, you can connect it to an isolated network. If you dont want to, dont, and the dishwasher will work.
only if you find it acceptable to not have full functionality. “you can put it on an isolated network”… is very much like “let them eat cake.”
Particularly if you consider the trend to force this in all sorts of things- ranging from toasters, refridgerators, ovens, stovetops, coffee makers, etc. Inorder to adequately protect mimizie the risks associated with these devices, you’d have to have a dedicated network for each one.
and yes, the reason they’re forcing you to use the home control app to get these features is to intrude into your privacy.
Notifications aside, none of the functions it enables require internet access, or even network access. There’s exactly zero reason to put it on the network. And as for notifications, I don’t know anyone that’s going to rush home or stop what they’re doing to put dishes away the moment the machine is finished cleaning them. is it possible you’re an exception to that? sure. I guess. but the vast majority of people- in my experience- won’t be finding anything that actually requires internet for to be all that useful.
Which- in case there was any confusion- is why they shut off functions people use all the time. To force people to use their app. Which, if they weren’t some how making money off that app, ask yourself why they’d care?
They’re making money off the app. which suggests they’re selling something they get from the app. (I suppose they could be using your IoT devices to mine crypto when you’re not using it… but that’s got it’s own issues.)
Even in my very high end Bosch ($1800 one), they removed buttons from their older version and put it into their revenue extraction cloud.
The exact same model from the previous year had a “half load button”. The new one requires you to register with their cloud service and use the app.
So the app only appears to give more because they removed features from the previous version.
Removing buttons definitely sucks. In my case, its a built in dishwasher, so space is already limited for buttons, and all the ones I need are there. So the cloud is 100% value add. I’d hate it as well if the app was my only choice for a feature.
But as I already explained, that’s not true. They gave you the illusion of value add by removing features. Look at your exact model, built in, from 3 years ago. It has buttons for half load, delay and delicate. It’s easier to push a button than find your phone and start the app. If your Internet is temporarily down, you don’t have those features.
If the app was used for additional features, I’d agree. But they removed features to give the illusion of value add.
I think its a matter of perspective though. I have all the physical buttons I need, and even ones I dont need, so im happy. For you, yours doesn’t have all the functions you need, so obviously your not happy.
Both versions have delay, but I did lose half load and delicate. Gained some other programs though, but those aren’t useful. Funnily enough, neither version has a dedicated rinse.
Series 6 Integrated incase anyone else is interested:
