For some time now, I have been trying to make my entire home smart and react to certain things or automate them. However, there are appliances in my home that are new but don't have smart functions. These include my washing machine and dryer, both from Samsung.

With both of them, I would like to receive a notification when the laundry is finished washing or drying.

Prerequisites 🔧

To make this work, you should already have a Home Assistant set up and running. You should also have so-called "smart plugs" in use. These are simply adapter plugs that are plugged in between the device and the socket and can be controlled via an app.

Here I can warmly recommend the smart adapter plugs from Meross 💶:

These are available in a 4-pack at Amazon💶 for just under €41 (currently with an 18% discount, which means they only cost €33.80). I now have almost 14 of them in use:

With this you can not only control devices, but also monitor the energy consumed in the energy dashboard:

Integration in Home Assistant

Integration is quite simple via the appropriate integration in Home Assistant:

GitHub - krahabb/meross_lan: Home Assistant integration for Meross devices

Home Assistant integration for Meross devices. Contribute to krahabb/meross_lan development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHubkrahabb

This integration means that Home Assistant no longer communicates with the devices via the Meross cloud, but directly via the network. Integration into the home network via the app is still necessary (but only once).

The automation 🤖

Once the sockets are active in the network and integrated into Home Assistant, you can also create a new automation that measures the power consumption and sends a corresponding notification if it is above or below a threshold value (in this case 5W). In the entity_id, replace the sensors for power to match your sockets:

alias: Device is ready ✅
description: Device is ready
trigger:
  - platform: numeric_state
    above: 5
    entity_id:
      - sensor.washing_machine_power
      - sensor.dryer_power
  - platform: numeric_state
    below: 5
    entity_id:
      - sensor.washing_machine_power
      - sensor.dryer_power
condition: []
action:
  - variables:
      device: "{{ trigger.entity_id }}"
      device_friendlyname: "{{ state_attr(trigger.entity_id, 'friendly_name') }}"
      device_state: "{% if trigger.below %}off{% else %}on{% endif %}"
      device_state_friendly: "{% if device_state == 'on' %}started{% else %}finished{% endif %}"
      device_state_icon: "{% if device_state == 'on' %}⏳{% else %}✅{% endif %}"
  - service: notify.notify
    data:
      title: >-
        {{ device_friendlyname }} is {{device_state_friendly}}
        {{ device_state_icon }}
      message: Have fun 😒
mode: single

That's basically it.

Conclusion 💡

With the smart sockets from Meross 💶 it is quite easy to make devices that are otherwise not smart smart smart at low cost and integrate them into your smart home system (e.g. Home Assistant).I show you how you can make normal devices smart relatively easily in the article ☝️

Why non-smart devices deserve monitoring too

Not every household device needs to be smart to be monitored. With a simple plug-in energy meter (like the Shelly Plug S or a Tuya plug with Tasmota), you can track any device's power consumption. From that, you can draw conclusions: Is the washing machine still drawing power? Then it's not finished yet. Is the fridge suddenly consuming more energy? Something might be wrong.

Monitoring without cloud

Especially with local protocols like Zigbee or Z-Wave, all data stays within your network. No cloud dependency, no privacy concerns. Home Assistant aggregates all data and can immediately send notifications when deviations from normal behavior occur – whether via push notification, email, or even as a voice announcement through a smart speaker.

Further reading

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