sensing washing machine and dryer states

Does anyone know of a solution so that Indigo can know whether my washer and dryer are running? Both are digital machines. I'm looking to get notifications when they are finished.

Thanks,
Rob Z

I do exactly what you're wanting to do with this kit. Unfortunately, the kit and the Light Probelinc itself are discontinued. However, you can still buy I/O Lincs (here, or at Smarthome) and can still find some Light Probelincs on eBay. It works for me quite well, though not without some customizations to the adhesive. The included adhesive is way too big and would cover other indicators and buttons, so I removed it and used electrical tape to block outside light instead. The Light Probelinc is least sensitive to greenish light, so if your washer and dryer use green LEDs for the "Done" indicators (like mine do), you have to be particularly persistent in blocking out all other light with the electrical tape. If your digital washer and dryer use an LCD status message instead of an LED indicator, this setup won't work. An iSync Solo could work with a washing machine. If your dryer is gas powered, an iSync Solo would likely work for it too.

I'm using a similar solution: How do/did I do this? Connect the dryer to Indigo/X10.

Does the power draw change for the washing machine depending on whether it is actually running or not?

I currently use a synchrolinc that drives a variable for the washer state. Synchrolinc on = washer on, synchrolinc off = washer done after an 8 minute delay (to account for no power draw during rinse), synchrolinc off plus an open close switch open = off

For the dryer, I'm using an imeter solo and polling once we see motion on the laundry room and then for another few hours until the dryer is emptied. Same idea there for on, done and off (after seeing the power draw for the dryer light).

I tied the sense line of an inlineLinc to the panel light (110vac on my machine).

There have been several threads on this topic over the past few years. A search should turn them up.

Thanks to all. I'll check these ideas out.

Best,
Rob Z

I used an iMeterSolo to figure out the power draw during a wash cycle, and a dry cycle. They usually differ quite a bit. Then I had a trigger watch the values of iMeterSolo and update variables washerOn, or dryerOn to true/false.

Has anyone tried a network-based solution? I have Samsung units that are WiFi enabled. The Samsung app doesn't allow much, and the notifications don't even work. I haven't gotten around to sniffing the packets to see what's going on yet, but I do know that the traffic is over TCP (as opposed to UDP) from what I read somewhere online. Anyone gone this deep?