With you there HH! We bought a very nice Bosch dishwasher last year, and the only thing that gets no use whatsoever is the wifi app. Totally useless gimmick.
Links to your phone to monitor temp. If it fails for any reason, door open, … it will message your phone. If the freezer is not in your kitchen, this could be useful. Happened quite a few times to us over the years. Not essential, but in 2021 it’s welcome.
Yes, can’t imagine an app being of any use for a dishwasher.
I think you have misread what Which? are saying because they do highly rate Miele washing machines.
Hmm, still seems pointless. Say you are on holiday and the freezer fails, it would just stress you out when you got a message. I’d rather not know. Ours beeps if you leave the door open, which given you are likely to still be in the kitchen, seems more than adequate. It’s just marketing bollocks.
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I have sustained a career of talking marketing bollocks. So it has its uses.
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Hear hear … we’ve just moved and replaced all our appliances with Samsung … both the refrigerator and the stove have their own Wi-Fi networks … seems just like more stuff that could go wrong to me …
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But my freezer is not in the kitchen, it’s in the west wing of the castle. Butler has not closed the door properly loads of times and in fact left the whole thing open once! If we’re on holiday and I get a warning message, I can let him know to check it out. I have mob apps for my lighting inside & outside, pvr, security cameras, etc and I want one for my freezer!
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This reminds me of an occasion a very famous internet guru, Vint Cerf, was speaking after me at a conference on IPv6 about ten years ago (I was the speaker opening the event). He talked about the coming importance of the Internet of Things and by way of illustration said he had a few months earlier flown from his home in the US for a two week business trip to Europe. His wife had gone away at the same time, as he wasn’t going to be there.
When he landed at Heathrow, he turned on his phone to find about 20 queued text messages telling him that the temperature in his wine cellar had risen above 14 deg C. (Those who often visit the wine thread in the Padded Cell would know this should be close to 12 deg C).
He knew these messages meant that the air conditioning in his wine cellar needed resetting but that wasn’t automated or remotely controlled and no-one was home. The way he told it he got a text message every five minutes for the next fortnight. And someone was working on remoting the aircon reset function for him.
Best
David
Can you not implant a chip in the butler so he can be notified of the need to shut the door without the master becoming involved? That’s got to be the way forward.
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That’s a few decades away. At least I’m making steps forward. Freezer full of food can be a lot of money.
The plan is. WiFi will allow the energy generating companies to take control of when your freezer freezes and when your dishwasher washes, etc.
It’s a win win situation. The generating companies will provide power to domestic appliances when there is spare capacity, the consumer will receive a discount on power used by these appliances.
The principle is already being used in some commercial buildings with high cooling loads. Control of the energy hungry chillers is handed over to the generating companies in return for a discount on energy used. (and they do use a lot of energy)
I have a Miele and I would not buy any other make
Unless you have hugely valuable contents in your freezer not covered by house contents insurance, or critical things like a medical facility or laboratory may have, I really don’t see any point in wifi! An oven, maybe, as you can turn it on remotely - though I suspect few people use the built-in timers that have been common for decades. I have no specific info, but I recall reading that these sorts of devices are often week security points and can be accessed by hackers to get into your network - presumably not if the network is well set up with good security, but but many aren’t…
Bad idea! A freezer deeds to chill down to the required temp as fast as possible, then maintain it using a thermostat. Dishwasher possibly, though I’m not convinced it is any better than, say, putting on last thing when going to bed???
That’s the equivalent of controlling a central heating boiler with a mechanical thermostat as opposed to a smart/intelligent control system.
There’s a lot of thing going on in the background that most people don’t even know exist. For example, to control a boiler efficiently, it is necessary to know the outside air temperature. If the boiler controls are connected to the internet, location/temperature can be obtained via the IP address location. It’s quite possible a wifi enabled freezer will have a control system that monitors the outside air temperature and controls accordingly.
Depends on what time you go to bed. 
Let’s assume the energy generators keep an eye on the weather forecast. At 3am they know there will be a lot of wind blowing and a lot of free energy generated. If they had control of every household’s freezer and dishwasher it would make sense to turn them on at 3am.
The householder would still have the ability to boost the freezer or turn on the dishwasher when they choose.
We have a large number of Miele appliances. When they work they’re great, but we experience a lot of failures (engineer attending to fix the range ignition tomorrow. This is the second range as they replaced the first FOC under warranty). The fridge freezer failed within a month of receiving it, and Miele really struggled for parts. In fact they let us down through no-shows on the day several times.
Their customer services can be outright hostile, and have used a lot of excuses as to the issues. I couldn’t recommend them - I think they rely on quality of build rather than aftercare but the quality of build seems very flawed now.
I am still unconvinced of the benefit of wifi for a freezer: With space heating which is often set at different temperatures for different occupation needs, whence for accurate control the time taken to raise from a low to high temperature is material, influencing factors such as external temperature could Indeed be relevant. A freezer on the other hand is intended to operate at a constant internal temperature rather than changing, so speed of change is immaterial, with lowering to that temperature desired as fast as possible should anything raise it. If constant heat removal at just the right rate is more efficient than cycling, then the temperature of the Immediate environment where the freezer sits will be a factor - however that can be read directly by an attached sensor. And the temperature external to that environment is immaterial. As for your suggestion “If they had control of every household’s freezer and dishwasher it would make sense to turn them on at 3am.”, that doesn’t work for the freezer which should be at constant temperature (or more specifically should not exceed a maximum temperature), so if it warms up it needs cooling energy immediately it goes past the max temperature, not wait till energy generation changes. So, I still fail to see why wifi is beneficial!
As for space heating, Boiler control systems that also monitor outside temperature have been around for a while, without needing to link into a network, so I am unclear as to what you see as giving better control there. The one thing with space (or water) heating that could be beneficial if connected online would be the ability to change a setting remotely, for example if someone was away from home with an uncertain date of return, the system could be left simply in frost protect mode then triggered remotely when the return time becomes known. However, I’m not sure I’d bother unless that was a frequent occurrence, as it really isn’t much of a problem if on the odd occasion the house wasn’t already warm upon arrival home.
However, I can see that for hifi, a luxury use of power that arguably should only be played with free electricity, the generating company could trigger your system to start playing at 3 AM!
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Just my 2c. I feel there is a lot of momentum towards making everything wifi enabled without proper use case and it is a ploy for manufacturers to create profit. We have a fair number of wifi enabled devices and I do really enjoy the ability to have air con turned on during a hot day before I arrive at home, based on my geo location relative to the house.
With freezer or fridge, I see the benefit of getting alert when there’s a failure. That’s about it. We have all come to expect this kind of appliances to be reliable, efficient and keeps the content within safe limits for a period of time without intervention. In the event of power failure, everything stops including wifi and you won’t want any essential services attached or dependent on it. I think I get enough alerts in a day without this one. For a medical or commercial food storage unit that’s a different story. Law requires that a log is kept along with any exceptions. Centrally managing these logs is a good idea.
I still do not trust wifi enabled exterior door locks, that could be unlocked remotely by hacker. Garage door is about as far as I would go given they tend to open in the event there is an obstruction / jam for whatever reason, crosstalk between remote controls, etc. It alerts me when the door is being closed or opened and I can check on it remotely anywhere. For fridge and freezer, not so much.
For any appliances, I usually look at long term review and negative feedback to see what problems people might encounter. I care little for magazine review looking at latest and greatest features except to learn about new trends and capabilities, then make up my mind whether I need them.
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Shows you when your freezer/dishwasher has rebooted or the screen has frozen!
When was the last time this happened?
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