Imagine a washing machine that has an insatiable thirst, not for water or detergent, but for internet data! This is the story of an LG washing machine, which, instead of spinning laundry, seemed to spin the data counter at breakneck speed. Every day, she swallowed 3.7 GB.
There is no shortage of unusual tech anecdotes. Take the surprising example of this LG connected washing machine, which recently got people talking. A user, named Johnie, shared on Twitter his astonishment: his machine seemed to consume no less than 3.7 GB of data daily. An extraordinary thirst for data for a household appliance!
The situation, although serious, gave rise to some very funny exchanges. Johnie joked about DLC (Downloadable Laundry Cycles) and wondered about the possibility of using his machine as an LPU (Laundry Processing Unit) in cryptocurrency mining. This hypothesis, although far-fetched, cannot be completely ruled out. Indeed, LG home appliances have already been the target of hacks, and the idea of a washing machine botnet, while unlikely, is not impossible. Imagine thousands of washing machines hijacked for DDoS attacks!
A router problem?
Johnie finally disconnected his washing machine from the network. However, some users suggest a more mundane explanation: incorrect recording or specification of data by the router.
Other LG smart washing machine owners checked their devices, the data consumption was around 1MB per day, a much more reasonable figure. The question remains open, but this story raises an important point: with the rise of connected devices, data management and security are a huge challenge.