Smart Laundry Room

I started by Flashing and Programming the Smart Outlet with Tasmota and Calibrated it with my Kill-A-Watt Meter to get a better ballpark range of the Voltages and Current usage since the Outlet I selected has Voltage/Current Sense Sensors. I have the Washing Machine plugged into it since it uses a standard 110 outlet for Power. I mostly followed this guide to set it all up. However I ran into an issue. The 110 Outlet in the Laundry Room only has a single Receptacle Outlet.

I need another outlet or some sort of a Five Volt Source for the D1 Mini for the Dryer. I highly doubt the Washing Machine let alone the Dryer has anything like that I can tap into.

The Layout of the Smart Outlet is an odd shape and if I was to replace the Outlet with one that has built in USB then the USB would be covered. I could replace the Outlet with a standard Receptacle with two Outlets and use a Phone Charger but I’m afraid the Kids will either steal it or break it from moving Washing Machine Lid. So my Solution is to get a A/C Thermostat Lock Box and modify the Smart Outlet and tap into the 5 Volt or 3.3 Volt Source to power the D1 Mini and have it inside the Lock Box. This way it’s protected from the Machine Lid and since it’s Plastic the WiFi Signal wouldn’t degrade much if at all. So the only Cabling going into the Box would be the Power Plug to the Washing Machine and the Current Clamp to the Dryer.

10 Hours Later

But wait there’s more. Since the Smart Plug was a 2 Pack I tried to open the second one and it seems to be glued together very tightly. I might have to get a Sonoff Plug like that was used in the Guide I followed.

However!

I did some Benchmarks to get an idea of the Idle Status and when the Washer is in use. That Washing Machine pulled 15.7 Amps and Home Assistant takes a minute to refresh it’s Sensor Data. I may have to tap into the Machine itself. The Front Panel has Status LEDs when it goes into it’s different cycles. If I tap into those it can tell me when the System is ON, when it’s Off, When it has hit the Rinse Cycle and so on then trying to judge it by the Power Consumption. A more complex Install hardware wise but easier programming by using Binary Switches. I then can power the D1 Mini from the Washer if I can find a low Voltage rail and all the Dryer needs is the CT Clamp.

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One thought on “Smart Laundry Room

  1. Generally I do not read article on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very forced me to try and do so! Your writing style has been surprised me. Thanks, quite nice article.

    Like

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