Washing machine Twitters when clothes are done
With Twitter, Ryan Rose gets short messages about what his friends are cooking for dinner, the latest updates from blogs and home improvement tips from the Home Depot. Oh, and now his washing machine tweets when a load of clothes is done.
The TiVo senior programmer from San Jose spent a week modifying his 25-year-old washing machine to send a message to Twitter when his laundry is ready. Rose, 35, admits his less-than-reliable memory has been to blame for the mildewed clothes that have piled up after he's left a load sitting in his machine too long.
But no more, thanks to Twitter text message alerts to his cellphone from his hacked washer, which he dubbed PiMPY3WASH. After some attention last week from various blogs, Rose's washing machine now has 152 followers on Twitter -- meaning every time he does laundry, 152 people hear about it.
One subscriber to PiMPY's laundry feed is Whirlpool's Twitter account. Brian Snyder, the company spokesman who oversees the appliance manufacturer's social media accounts, reached out to Rose on YouTube after spotting the video. He said the company was "always looking for new ways to connect our appliances to the Internet."
Rose told Whirlpool that he's excited about the potential to bring this technology to a mainstream audience. "I said, 'Look, I could probably get these things installed for less than $20 -- [the amount] it cost me in parts.' Why aren't these things out on the market yet?"
The washing machine isn't Rose's first compelling hack. A few years ago, he made a Christmas wreath that plays Simon Says.
And if you're looking for other hacks to entertain you and save valuable seconds, check out this gadget that pours beer when you tilt your iPhone. It should come in handy now that the last beer-pouring robot we wrote about has become obsolete. Thanks a lot, Pownce!
-- Mark Milian
Thank you, Mark. For more on what Whirlpool Corporation is doing with Internet-connected appliances, check out the results of the 2008 State of the Connected Home Study we recently completed with Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Direct Energy, Bell Canada and others:
Press release - http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=ind_focus.story&STORY=/www/story/01-06-2009/0004949961&EDATE=
Executive summary (free) - http://www.caba.org/Content/Documents/Document.ashx?DocId=32664
Full report (store) - http://www.caba.org/estore
Thanks again,
Brian (@WhirlpoolCorp)
Posted by: Brian Snyder | January 12, 2009 at 07:08 PM
That's awesome!!! I have to manually set a timer on my Vista gadgets for a timer to go off at the time when laundry should be done....
Posted by: Niche Titans | January 12, 2009 at 10:24 PM
I want one! My dryer has an alarm like a submarine klaxon to announce "I'm done!" at 100dB. A Tweeting washer would be da bom. And so much less, um, loud.
Posted by: Casey Quinlan | January 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM
This is absolutely hilarious...but what might be the funniest thing about this is that there are actually people subscribing to the washing machine besides Ryan. That's what's so funny. Why the hell would I want to know when some random guy's clothes are ready? Ha.
Posted by: Greg Huntoon | January 13, 2009 at 12:28 PM
I had a similar idea when I was in college (before Twitter and sms was "new"). College students who shared a common laundry room would often start laundry late at night and fall asleep (forgetting about it).
A simple text/Tweet to remind them they had wash downstairs would've been perfect.
Well done for acting on the idea!
Posted by: Robert Rowe | January 13, 2009 at 02:22 PM
I hope we get this in our toilette paper roll holder - so I get a tweet "Sorry your XXX is out of paper" ;-)
Posted by: @AxelS | January 13, 2009 at 05:11 PM
My school already has this in the dorms
Posted by: | January 13, 2009 at 06:36 PM
Another device for the losers of the world. I've known a long time that I could attach an embedded device to almost everything known to man...but only a few super geeks only care...and the main stream don't give a sh*t!!!!
Posted by: Enlightenment | January 13, 2009 at 07:35 PM
Would you be willing to post directions for how you did this, and how I can do this? I'm afraid that after Whirlpool gets it, it will be waaaayyyy too expensive for me.
Posted by: Cindy Chen | January 14, 2009 at 12:21 AM
i would like to point out this was originally posted on hackaday.com
Posted by: none | January 14, 2009 at 01:47 AM
Does he have instructions posted anywhere on the web on how to do this?
Posted by: coolgrease | January 14, 2009 at 06:47 AM
Oh whoa, no way. It's not like every college in the US doesn't already have this feature.
Posted by: Goron40 | January 14, 2009 at 07:35 AM
There's services that do this for many colleges already...
http://www.usatech.com/esuds/
Posted by: Rick | January 14, 2009 at 03:07 PM
Thanks. Realy intetresting.
Posted by: Patlat | January 14, 2009 at 04:11 PM
What an interesting idea..
After this we might be able to command out electronic tools by Twitter.
For example, twitter alerts your Oven to cook, turn-on the lights,etc.
Posted by: Benzodiazepine | January 14, 2009 at 10:06 PM
Two and a half men anyone?
Posted by: Mauro | June 27, 2009 at 10:16 PM