homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.
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Why do my LG smart fridge and my GE washer and dryer all have DNS servers? And is there a way I can control them without the manufacturer's miserable apps? (lemmy.radio)

submitted 20 hours ago by early_riser@lemmy.radio to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Home brewers are looking at you very oddly right now.

[–] southernbrewer@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

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?

[–] claude_flammang@dju.social 1 points 3 hours ago

@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.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

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