The Core

I've noticed that major appliances just don't have the lifespan they used to have.  I see my kids buying refrigs, washing machines, heat pumps, etc. because of catastrophic failure forcing replacement every 7-8 years vs 15-20 for us when we bought ours.  Anecdotally, it seems to be circuit boards failing more than routine electro-mechanical problems.  And the cost of trying to service them is prohibitive with a substantial risk of failure to fix.

Back a few years ago, I saw a youtube where a guy replaced his dishwasher's control board with an arduino.  As I watch arduino & rpi communities develop and progress, I think there will be an increasing effort to replace expensive, stupid control boards with inexpensive, smart computers.

Just my thought for today  ...as I work on my dishwasher.

BTW, my microwave is approaching 20 and my trash compactor is 35.

Makes sense and would be great if that's the direction things go. I'm sure the likes of the EU would be on-board for this way of thinking.

Maybe even a standardised protocol would move things along faster.

Seems like an interesting market to tap into.

From what little I've done in GPU programming it seems like a hodge-podge of protocol but will become a more mainstream and more standardised way to compute.

<added>
>Maybe even a standardised protocol would move things along faster.

Didn't they do that with phone chargers?

> EU Phone chargers

They did and everyone bar Apple signed up to it, preferring instead to pay the fine every year. The standard was micro USB , which is now being phased out for USB C

> Arduino & Standardised comms

I'd love to see this happen after my boiler PCB broke down and had to be replaced. An easy job to do, but illegal for anyone bar a CORGI recognised plumber to do. When I saw what the issue was (Dry joint on one terminal) it pissed me off royally, especially as there is so little these devices need to do and an Arduino is simply a programmable chip with a simple language for coders to do lots of things well enough

New dishwasher this month.
apparently hotpoint have to sell 7000 units per (week month , not listening) but so many to keep selling, that the dishwasher is now designed to only last 2-3 years. (on 3-4 washes a week)

The EU meanwhile reduce the amount of water you can use in them, but ignore the elephant in the room. 


Anyone fancy settling up a small manu plant making simple dishwashers, that use enough water to wash the pots, and last 20 years?

Thats a serious job.  took more than several  days.... to save $150.

>crap

Yes.  I replaced my 6 yr old dishwasher.  New one takes twice as long to go through a wash cycle.  Uses less water to meet EPA standards which is probably good for California and the SW USA but I have no shortage of water here.   Does not clean as well as the old one and is drawing electricity all during the longer cycle.

Over the stove microwave died after 4 years, nice lady at the independent repair shop told me the $$ numbers over the phone to maybe fix it, and said "you might do better just going to Lowes and get a new one."

Neighbors, all with appliances about the same age as mine, have had refrigerators, dishwashers, microwaves all die.  And yes it is often the circuit boards that fail.  Seems like the fancier the appliances with more electronic bells and whistles fail first.

>more electronic bells and whistles fail first.

One of my SILs is an absolute sucker for high-end crap.  I've seen several of his high-$$, exclusive, TV-Chef endorsed, uber-name-brand appliances (dishwasher, now on his 3rd. Microwave. Gourmet gas range & oven) go tits-up in less than 2 years.  Then he spends days of his time waltzing with repairmen. Screw that.


Here's an appliance-buying tip that's served me almost as well as The Lynsky...  buy the model that's one level up from the merchant's doorbuster. Two levels up MAX.