App connected pressure washer?

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Karcher are advertising an app connected pressure washer - I cannot imagine what purpose that might serve?

[Andy Burns]

I wondered about that, you hardly want to have your mobile phone in your hands while using a pressure-washer ...

[Steve Walker]

Just another gimic. Our dishwasher is capable of control via an app, over wifi, but to what purpose? Once you have loaded the dishes and the detergent, you can start it there and then, quicker and easier from the front panel. If you want a delayed start, that can be done quickly and easily from the front panel too. The only thing the app can do extra, is to see how long is remaining before the end of cycle, without going to look at the machine - and I can just remember when it is due to end instead.

I can see some use for apps - earlier I went to get pizza and forgot to put the oven on to warm it for when I got back. Being able to turn the oven on remotely would have been useful - however, I have a wife a 3 children, so phoning home is good enough ... and they can check that nothing has been left in the oven first as well.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Andy Burns pretended :

Maybe tech for tech's sake?

[Theo]

The problem with a lot of 'smart home' stuff is it's actually quite dumb. Controlling the dishwasher from your phone is a good example - a nice gimmick but pretty useless in real life. What you might want is actual home automation: to be able to tell the dishwasher to run when the electricity cost is lowest (perhaps the weather outlook is good for your solar panels), or maybe to activate something when it finishes (a fan to vent the steam for example).

Being automation, once you've set it up you don't have to do any work. This is unlike the manufacturer's app, which is primarily designed to make you interact with it to sell you ads (or something). It's the needy toddler versus the pro you can trust to do the job for you.

It really depends on your lifestyle, but an automation might be to turn on the oven when you leave work. You put a potato in there in the morning, and the automation detects when you leave work and starts the oven. You get home to a freshly baked potato no matter what time you end up leaving.

Then there are those of the opinion that setting a variable temperature profile is the route to the perfect roast. That's the sort of thing that's more easily done in the app than with a fiddly control panel. You could of course set a reminder to go and change the temperature dial, but perhaps you'd rather get on with something else and let the dinner cook itself?

I'm not sure how much I'd pay for this stuff, but I'd guess quite a few people have a 'killer app' that would make it worthwhile - it's just different for everyone.

Theo

[Theo]

Looking at the rather cheesy video:

it seems to be an app that tells you what settings to use for what task and sets them for you. So you select 'I'm cleaning a patio' and it configures it for you.

Nothing you couldn't do with the instruction book and pressing the buttons on the tool, but I suppose at the domestic end of the spectrum you might get the pressure washer out once a month and forget what it needs. And the instruction book is also not a great thing to have around in a wet environment (whereas many phones are waterproof these days).

It probably adds $2 to the BOM to add the Bluetooth and the rest is software. I don't think I'd pay much for the feature, but then I wouldn't pay for a pressure washer in the first place.

Theo

[Andy Burns]

Looks like it has multiple nozzles in that "flamethrower-like" lance, so you can twist to get a fan, a straight jet or a turbo spinning jet.

[Dave Plowman (News]

You can wash your car while sitting watching TV?

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Destroying your mobile phone, stop the flow when you are getting an incoming call? Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

You have to have the phone unlocked for that surely? Brian

[Andrew]

Removing a Banksy ?

[Andrew]

It's the 2020 version of 1980's "microprocessor controlled"