Tumble Dryer Remote Display - Part I

If you have read any of my previous posts here I don't break a secret when I tell you that I am lazy. Yes, I am lazy. Well, basically it is one of the prerequisites to be good at what I do for a living. Apart from that I am convinced that a lot of good ideas and helpful inventions are - to some extend - based on (personal) laziness. We are surrounded by (more or less) little helpers that make a lot of tasks and parts of our everyday life easier. And one or two of those things could use some improvement.

Like my tumble dryer. It sure is one of those things that really make my life easier, yet I prefer to keep this minion in a place that isn't my living room or home office. Along with my washing machine, the tumble dryer can be found in a corner of my bathroom. While this is overall quite convenient it has one tiny drawback: because it cannot (or at least hardly) be heard it while it is running, the only way to find out whether it has finished its job or not is to get up, walk to the bathroom and have a look.

Over the months I have thought of different ways that could have solved this serious problem, but as most of them would have either included drilling holes through walls, running cables, tinkering with the dryer's electronics or a combination of those, none of them has ever seen the light of day. The ideal way I could think of was a an non- or minimal invasive approach, especially as far as the tumble dryer was concerned, in combination with some sort of wireless connection to some kind of remote display.

When the Raspberry Pi became available, I decided that I had to get at least one. I loved the idea of this small computer device, and even though it came with loads of limitations, what I could be used for was (and is, of course) mostly limited by the imagination of those who use it. I was pretty curious (with curiosity at almost the level as laziness) and the weeks from putting my name on the waiting lists to the days when the order confirmation was received had been pure torture, not to mention the weeks until the two precious devices had arrived.

After getting familiar with the Raspberry Pi, I bought a cover for it, some small breadboards, kind of stocked up on basic electronic components and started playing around with what so far has been one of the greatest features this computer offers: the GPIO connector. A complete, Linux-based system that could be used to connect to and control - almost anything. Almost anything? Almost anything. Like a tumble dryer.

As might have guessed by now, the tumble dryer remote display is no longer an idea. It is a working prototype, the hardware as well as the software. And as I have been asked to write about it, well, that is why this piece you are reading exists. So, if you are interested in what it all is about and how it is done I will tell you in the following parts I am going to write/compile over the next days (or weeks). This is the basic idea of the series of postings:

• Part I - introduction to the tumble dryer remote display
• Part II - concept of the hardware interface and building the prototypes 
• Part III - reading the interface input, creating a basic remote display
• Part IV - a kind of outlook what might come next, ideas, possible options

Before you jump to one of the next parts and continue reading, let me give you a fair warning: when it comes to electronics and programming I am just a hobbyist. That said, the whole project and its hardware and software prototypes are far from being "best workmanship". But it was fun creating the whole thing and I have learned a lot, not to mention the ideas that appeared through the whole process of creating that tumble dryer remote display.

So, maybe some of you, after reading about it all, can imagine that it could be fun to do something like that themselves. Let me tell you: it is! Creating something that solves a problem, something that actually works is just great, an invaluable experience. It can be fun.

Laziness can be a wonderful thing!