We have kids. Having kids comes with having lots of laundry. Our washing machine runs nearly every day. God forbid if we’d forget to hang out a single load of laundry. The pile would stack up indefinitely…

We can’t handle that much pressure! That’s why Home Assistant has to help us.

The Problem

A common situation we were facing is the following:

• We started the washing machine with a big load of kids-laundry in the evening.
• We went right to the couch and watched some Netflix.
• We went to sleep.
• We woke up the next morning with the instant knowledge that we forgot the laundry in the washing machine.
• The laundry stinks due to lying around wet in the drum all night
• We have to wash that load again
• The next kids-laundry-load stacks up the pile.

That happened way too often. That’s why I decided to make my laundry smart!

Step 1: Gathering data

Our washing machine is really dumb. But there is a common approach in the community to integrate these kind of machines into Home Assistant:

You can detect the state of the washing machine by looking at its current power consumption.

All I need to retrieve the current power consumption of the washing machine is a smart plug with integrated power monitoring. Just make sure to check the data sheet — you’ll want one that allows at least 2.5kW before shutting off!

After integrating that plug into Home Assistant, do some washing runs! Try your favorite programs — for us it’s 40°C and 60°C. Afterwards you can check the power graphs inside the history right from Home Assistant!

Step 2: Defining the states

This step was easy. Our washing machine can only have two states: Either it’s washing or it’s idle. I capsuled these two states in an input_select helper.

Step 3: A logic for setting the states

Look at the graph of my washing machine again:

• Right after I started the run the power goes above 2W.
• This is followed by a very high power consumption around 1800W. This is where the washing machine heats up the water.
• Later there are several peaks when the laundry gets spun.
• At the end the power consumption drops below 2W again.

Knowing that after analyzing several graphs I created an automation that sets my helper entity’s state to washing when the power consumption is bigger than 2W for at least 60s.

I need a second automation to reset my helper entity’s state back to idle when the power consumption is below 2W for at least 60s.

Step 4: Defining when the laundry needs attention

Now we know whether the washing machine is idle or washing. But we don’t know whether the laundry needs any attention. Idle can mean two things:

• The washing machine can be idle and empty.
• The washing machine can be idle but filled with wet laundry.

I therefore created another helper entity. It’s a simple input_boolean which will tell me whether I have to do laundry stuff or can stay on the couch.

I enable this input_boolean with another automation. As soon as the state of my washing machine changes from washing to idle, I know that it’s done and that my laundry needs attention.

Step 5: Knowing when the laundry was taken care of

The alert reader might already ask how the attention input_boolean will be reset. As soon as my wife or me opens the washing machine I can be 95% sure that the laundry gets hung out right away. So I use exactly that as a trigger!

I bought and attached a cheap contact sensor to my washing machine’s door. That way I can reset the input_boolean in an automation right when the door gets opened:

Benefits

I now know whether my laundry needs attention or not. This enables me to do some real cool automations:

• I can make a TTS announcement on my Sonos speakers which scrambles us to finally take care of the laundry as soon as the washing machine is done.
• I can remind as just before going to bed that there are still wet kid-socks in the washing machine.
• I can color the laundry icon on my dashboard red when there is some laundry work to do.

Conclusion

Making a dumb washing machine smart is really easy and inexpensive. Nevertheless it is really helpful and not just kid’s stuff. My wife loves that there are no more stinky laundry surprises in the morning.

I took the same approach for making our dryer smart.

Damn… The washing machine just send a notification to my phone. :-/

Thanks for reading!