And I would ask the maximum allowed with fraud, by law.
18 U.S. Code § 1030.
Could you pls. point me to which paras are the most relevant to the said logic-based disabling?
Wahing machines for dishes are much more complex and have many more points of failure.
...but morally?
Because it's illegal to pay so little, and nobody would do it for that price anyway, except for maybe your own children, who do it for that price plus the negative incidence of an asswhooping. If it were affordable for common people to have servants or slaves, they totally would. Machinery priced slaves out of existence. The next frontier is for value-added centralized industrial manufacturing to be priced out by distributed manufacturing and recycling, not a return to the days of domestic servitude.
He mentions mentally disabled people specifically, who have lower minimum wage levels in some jurisdictions.
/s ?
You just connect a couple of hoses and power, surely? And I'll bet the install fee eats a huge percentage of that price.
So tired of replacing my appliances every 4 years
Warning - you NEED to go with the top loader if your actually want basically no maintenance. The front loaders WILL require seals at times.
But the Queen can run 40 years.
I (UK) bought this (https://ao.com/product/wnc25410gb-bosch-series-8-idos-washer...) Bosch one a few months ago and it is perfectly usable without enabling any of the smart capabilities though. I haven't connected mine to wi-fi at all.
Not useful for Ireland, but I really like my local habitat for humanity thrift store for perfectly serviceable used or recovered building materials and appliances. Maybe search for a model prior to the iot insanity wars?
Compared to smartwatches they aren't expensive, look classy and show time and/or date. The quality of Swiss, German and Japanese is reliable. No batteries, no electronics and they wind up by wearing.
Recommendation: Look for the models from the 50ies/60ies which are smaller and still in production, the less known manufacturers have reasonable prices. I love the original Mido Commander.
It just displays time and can't spam me with notifications! Bliss!
There is functionality hidden in the app, so that the manufacturer can save a dime and a half on some buttons. Unfortunately, this line has already been crossed.
The functionality that is hidden: Rinse, Machine Care (self-cleaning), HalfLoad, Eco and Delay start.
I trust Consumer Reports and would never buy an appliance without consulting them, but it doesn't surprise me that they're a little conservative and wouldn't realize they need to call this stuff out initially.
The interesting bit would be to have the reaction from Bosch. They "updated" their design and the review score went down.
In the meantime "wifi" is a feature that can be filtered on in their sorting tool.
Granted, not everyone wants or cares to minimize waste when it comes to objects of convenience, but plenty of folks want the option... and yes, I do realize I sound like "your father who bought fancy cars with manual windows because it's one less thing that can break." :) My own father was that kind of person.
We're probably all familiar with the XY problem, but I think we must also beware the XY problem-problem, where a posed problem is inappropriately identified as an XY problem and a good question is not given a good answer. (See also: much of Stack Overflow) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
For example, the AC unit I bought, resets any settings changes from the front panel if you power cycle it, unless you configure them in the web interface.
My new microwave with a "child safety" lock has a button combination you can use to disable the lock, but it forgets that setting on losing power, so you have to perpetually keep the sequence needed around if you ever have brownouts or blackouts.
And, of course, if you just ignore it, it might be waiting for someone to come by with the right bluetooth or 802.11 network or s/t and use any "optional features" however they like...
What is the problem exactly?
(Or, buy a used one from a reputable brand.)
(The division there is currently 64 with app, 43 without. The models without appear to score higher in the reviews.)
https://www.coolblue.nl/wasmachines/filter/bediening-via-app...
Mind you, I have 'regular' buttons that don't respond well either.
Samsung sells commercial monitors that are just TVs without all the smart crap. You can even opt out of a wifi card
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1828914-REG/samsung_q...
I'm not aware of any lists, and the market is thin, but they're out there.
I also have friends with Samsung washing machines. Let’s just say get an AEG.
I've replaced two heating elements in my ~9 year old Samsung dryer, I think the heating elements were less than 50 USD. I did the labor myself so I don't know how much that would have been - you do have to take the dryer apart, but it doesn't take very long if you have experience, 15-20 minutes or less.
I would not recommend Samsung - I've had to take that dryer apart more than 10 times to replace/fix things, I can't imagine how much it would have cost me if I couldn't do it myself. The only plus there is now I can literally break it down and put it back together very quickly when I need to fix it.
Luckily the Samsung washer has been fine.
I have a washing machine without wifi fortunately. It has this steam function where you can set it to steam your clothing regularly at the end of the wash cycle, in case you forget to take them out in time.
Half the time if i turn that on it takes the button press to stop but does not unlock the door :)
I have to run an extra dry cycle manually to get at my laundry. Which kind of defeats the point of the 'fire and forget' option.
It's easy finding dumb washing machines. I'd bet that most of the current washing machines on the market are dumb.
It's not exclusively aimed at non-smart stuff, but there tends to be a pretty strong overlap between the two - so it might be worth taking a look at.
Then again, maybe I could hack it to host a Mastodon instance or run Doom.
Doom might be dangerous, though.
You probably have to subscribe to be able to do so, but I'd never buy a major appliance without reading the Consumer Reports rating.
No motel microwave is “smart”. No commercial kitchen is going to have the line cooks installing “apps”.
BUT BE AWARE that commercial items have different requirements and tradeoffs! You need to research them before buying. Some may matter to you, some may be a safety issue, some may be technically or actually illegal to run at home.
For example, commercial ovens may look similar to your home oven, but have zero insulation anywhere and NOT be designed to be installed next to anything except solid metal.
But commercial and used commercial can be great. You can still get zero smarts devices, like microwaves with literally no computers in them, just a timer dial.
You can also import many from the USA, but you’d have to check power requirements very carefully. Commercial equipment is often available in 240v in the USA but it may not be self-switching.
But be aware that commercial dishwashers work - but even if you don’t get a massive Hobart machine that they’re designed for speed, not energy efficiency or silent operation.
comrade1234•5h ago