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Smart devices can testify against you: How home robot data is being used in court
(www.the-independent.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2026
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Smart washing machine: ours is in the basement and my wife and I used to regularly forget we had laundry in it. I now have Home Assistant text us when a load is complete. But it only texts us if we are home and can do something about it. If nobody is home it waits until one of us gets home to text us.
BUT: The washer and dryer are still dumb, pre-IoT generation. I built light sensors that are taped to the displays, and Home Assistant relies on those to determine if the appliances are on or off. No need for cloud-based monitoring, etc. A little creativity like that can work just as well or better than a convenient cloud-based solution.
I've considered that, for the same reasons. My machines are obnoxious enough to be heard through half the house on their own however.
The built in smart ones seem to be the worst of all worlds. They farm you for data, while not providing much of use. They try to tie you into ecosystems, that stop you using the data elsewhere.
My solution was going to be to monitor current draw, via a power monitoring plug, running Tasmota. Once it's below a threshold for long enough, send an alert.
I have my electricity smart meter display in my study so I can see on there when the oven is done preheating
I've been trying to find a IoT thermometer that can survive oven temperatures long term (or at least its probe can). No luck so far. I currently don't really trust its own settings.
I solved this problem by making it a habit to set up a timer on my phone after I started the washing machine.