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The Laundruino Lets You Know When Your Clothes Are Done Over The Net

Davide GombaAugust 18th, 2011

[Micha] has a washing machine with an inaccurate  time data displayed on the front panel. How to solve this?

Since it is located in his basement, he hated having to check on the machine continually to know when his clothes were done. Instead of hauling up and down the stairs over and over, he decided to hack in an “end of cycle” notifier of his own.

The washer has an LED that lights when it is finally done doing its thing, so [Micha] removed the LED and soldered in two wires, which he then connected to his Arduino. When the washer is finished and the LED should be lit, the Arduino senses that the input has been pulled low, signaling the end of the cycle. The Arduino was hooked into his home network via an Ethernet shield, enabling him to monitor the process from the comfort of the nearest web browser.

via [hackAday] source [blog.fsfe]

3 Responses to “The Laundruino Lets You Know When Your Clothes Are Done Over The Net”

  1. baris acar Says:

    Nice.
    But it is overkill.
    You just can buy a stopwatch, your machine has certainly the programmes with certain times doesnt it?

  2. Sundog Says:

    Why hack the washer? Why not simply tape a light sensor over it?

  3. David Says:

    Nice way to fix something broken. Overkill, maybe but…
    1. It’s a solution that works for the user
    2. It’s probably a lot cheaper than getting it repaired or replaced

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