nocalla, 10 months ago

@homeassistant thanks for the suggestions - @kenguest @kaiserkiwi @dmakovec @Ben @bdiederik @stooovie

I've gone with a helper function of a Threshold Sensor that triggers at above or below 5W to indicate when the washing machine is running. When this sensor registers as "Not Running" for 10mins, the notification gets sent. Seems to be working so far and allows for the amount of power being used for a while on standby after the machine finishes.

stooovie, 10 months ago

@nocalla @homeassistant @kenguest @kaiserkiwi @dmakovec @Ben @bdiederik yes, that's a slightly more complex variant of what I'm doing :)

bdiederik, 10 months ago

@nocalla @homeassistant @kenguest @kaiserkiwi @dmakovec @Ben @stooovie

My washing machine got a mastadon account.

@setaggi

kaiserkiwi, 10 months ago

@nocalla @homeassistant X Watt for Y Minutes is the way to go.

kenguest, 10 months ago

@kaiserkiwi @nocalla @homeassistant or read Phil Hawthorne's excellent blog post on the topic. https://philhawthorne.com/making-dumb-dishwashers-and-washing-machines-smart-alerts-when-the-dishes-and-clothes-are-cleaned/

nocalla, 10 months ago

@kaiserkiwi @homeassistant Yeah, that seems the most reasonable, but will take some trial and error to find the right timeframe.

bdiederik, 10 months ago

@nocalla @homeassistant if you use an automation you can add a time the device needs to be in a state

stooovie, 10 months ago

@nocalla @homeassistant in my case, triggering by "less than 4W for more than 10 minutes" was enough. Not super smart but doing its job. I'm sure I could make the time window shorter but no point really.

dmakovec, 10 months ago

@stooovie @nocalla @homeassistant I've done similar. It does all depend on the specific machine though. My old Samsung machine used to bounce around power usage in standby mode for up to about 10 minutes (and was surprisingly power hungry all the time in standby).

My new Bosch basically hits zero within a minute of finishing its load and stays there, so it's much easier to track (and cuts a few $ a year from my power bill to boot)