You can use the IoT friendly Adafruit FunHouse board, combined with a fast-vibration switch, to set up an a smart washing machine timer, triggered by the spin cycle, and never forget to hang out your clothes again!

Get a notification at a set time after the spin cycle is detected, along with being able to glance at the onboard display for details.

Get reminders until the washing is hung out, signified by pressing one of the onboard buttons (or remotely), updating the display message and stopping the notification routine.

Although not required, you can setup a "Start Cycle" button action to avoid any false starts, which can also be used during testing to help establish the time between start/spin/end points of the wash cycle.

Parts

Grab appropriate cables or wires, for simplicity the JST-PH connectors are the most robust, but quite short. 

Either use the JST 3-Pin ports on the FunHouse and an appropriate JST-PH 3-pin cable, or jumper wires with the 2.54mm female sockets at the top of the board designed for the PIR sensor.

Here is the recommended alligator/crocodile clips version of the JST-PH 3-pin cable:

Or, instead of the JST-PH to alligator/crocodile clips, you might prefer to solder some header pins onto the vibration switch, and then use female-male DuPont connectors to the female PIR headers or a JST cable.

Next pick up one or two Fast vibration sensor switches, although one should be enough for this project.

Additional Tools

• Mounting tape - Double sided adhesive tape, or some other way of attaching the switch to the washing machine (or to the FunHouse as it'll vibrate too).

Finally, the FunHouse includes a built in display and buttons, which we'll take advantage of, but if using another board, then you'll ideally want a button or two and a compatible display.

Now to move on to setting up the board with the WipperSnapper firmware, configuring the components on the device page, and then setting up Actions to automate the notifications and reset the state.

Assuming you have already gone through the WipperSnapper Setup page and connected your board(s) to WipperSnapper, navigate to the WipperSnapper board list. You should see your newly connected FunHouse board listed here.

If you do not see your FunHouse listed - go back to the WipperSnapper Setup Page and make sure its registered with Adafruit.io

On the device page, quickly check that your device is online and is running the latest version of the WipperSnapper firmware.

The device tile on the left indicates the version number of the firmware running on the connected board.

• If the firmware version is green with a checkmark - continue with this guide.
• If the firmware version is red with an "X" - update to the latest WipperSnapper firmware on your board before continuing.

Adding Components

From the FunHouse device page, click the Auto-Config button, which can be used to automatically set up all of the various buttons, LEDs, and sensors built into the FunHouse.

On the pop-up, select Import Config to have Adafruit IO do all of the heavy lifting.

Use this file to add just the components for this project (later try out Magic Config):

Your FunHouse built in components should all be set up and configured, and the the display initializes, showing the WipperSnapper logo followed by the status bar.

You can do a quick test to confirm it is all working as it should by pressing the Down and Up buttons. The corresponding button component should instantly react.

Make sure you press the Down button at least once! You'll use the press event timestamp later.

The next step sets up Adafruit IO Actions to get all of this to work.

Always ensure your board is unplugged when doing any wiring changes, it reduces the risk of damage.

Avoid the red alligator clip touching anything else and damaging it! Try covering it up with insulating tape.

Alternatively you might find it's enough to gently shorten the cable with a simple loop and tuck it away.

Assembly

Attach the magnetic feet to the back side of the FunHouse using the four corner threaded nuts in the PCB.

Consider the cable length when mounting the FunHouse to the Washing Machine, as you'll need to mount the vibration switch relatively close using some thick backed double sided adhesive mounting tape.

The angle and orientation of the vibration switch can affect it's responsiveness, so experiment by rotating the mounting angle, or position (front vs. side/top). You can mount it by just the legs for even more bounce.

Here you'll setup a single action to help with recording how long a washing machine cycle takes to complete, after the vibration is detected (usually in the final spin cycle). You'll handle notifications later in the guide.

Create a new feed to store notification status

Before creating the Action, you need a new feed to hold the notification status. You'll set the value of the feed to "almost-washed", "washed", or "hungout", depending on the state of the system, and respond to that in another action.

Visit the Feeds page using the navigation menu, or by visiting https://io.adafruit.com/feeds/, and then use the New Feed button to create a new feed.

Give it an unambiguous name and description for your future benefit, like "washer-notify".

Create the Cycle Monitoring Action

Start by visiting the Actions page using the navigation menu, or going to https://io.adafruit.com/actions/.

Then click the New Action button and fill in a useful name like 'Washing Cycle Timer' & description.

You'll be taken to the new action's edit page, and be presented with the Actions workspace.

Visit the documentation site regularly for the latest guidance on the available block types and usage.

Now, as you've got buttons and a display, you'll set the action to use the last button press time.

Then depending if that button is pressed more recently than the last detected vibration, you'll update the display to one of two message templates, along with setting the value of the 'washing-notify' feed.

Next it's on to the logic section. If you only use one button then you'll need to make minor adjustments.

Start by adding an If/Else/Else-If block from the Logic category of the toolbox into the Actions: section.

Next, replace the Else-If conditional block (another 'true' dropdown) with a Numeric Comparison block, and utilize the Get Variable blocks to do another similar comparison of "ended" > "started".

At this point, it's worth adding in two extra Trigger blocks, to capture When Any Data arrives for both the Up and Down buttons on the FunHouse, and then update the screen message.

Your Action should look like this before continuing:

Now for the Display templates! There's one minor caveat that will improve in the near future when we add Time related blocks, but for now this template includes a hard-coded timezone offset (5h x 3600s = 18000) to render times in GMT instead of EST. You could instead use a variable or feed and update it more easily.

Started:
{{ vars.started | plus: 18000 | date: '%H:%M:%S' }}

No Cycle
recorded. 


<-- Hung/End

<-- Start

 Started:
  {{vars.started | plus: 18000 | date: '%H:%M:%S' }}
 Last Cycle:
  {{vars.vibrated | plus: 18000 | date: '%H:%M:%S' }}
 Ended/Hung:
  {{vars.ended | plus: 18000 | date: '%H:%M:%S' }}

Started:
{{vars.started | plus: 18000 | date: '%H:%M:%S' }}

Last Cycle:
{{vars.vibrated | plus: 18000 | date: '%H:%M:%S' }}


<-- Hung/End

Your action should look like this before using the Save & Run button and continuing on to the next page.

Now to create a simple action to send a notification every 30 minutes until you hang out the washing.

First, as a form of debouncing, you'll create an extra action to switch the washer-notify feed from "almost-washed" to "washed" after a 30 minute resettable delay. Resettable so extra vibrations mean the same run.

Create a new action called "Washing Almost Ready", and add a When Data Matching = 0 trigger.

Your action should look similar to the image above before continuing on with this guide.

Now it's on to the main notification action, which sends an Email/SMS at regular intervals.

Start by creating a new action with an appropriate name and description, like "Hang clothes notifier".

Your action should look the same as above. Now go and test your Action / System!

Testing

Most washing machines have a drain + spin cycle, which doesn't actually wash anything, but is a useful test to see if the vibration sensor detects it. Mine takes 10 minutes with spin, and only detects 3/4 of the way.

If the end time is more than 30 minutes after the spin cycle was detected then modify the delay time of the "Washing Almost Ready" action (mentioned at the top of previous page).

Usage

If you don't "end" the cycle, by pressing the Down button, then soon you'll be receiving an Email reminding you to hang out the washing.

They'll keep being sent until you finally do the good deed, or pull the emergency rip cord by changing the washer-notify feed to a value that isn't almost-washed or washed.

SMS Text Messages?

If you prefer using SMS messages (and are USA / Canada based with an IO+ subscription) then you can easily swap the Email block for an SMS block instead. 

Just make sure you have set up your number and verified it in the Accounts->Services->IO SMS settings:
https://accounts.adafruit.com/settings/phone

Prefer Discord / Slack notifications?

You could do that too!

Go and checkout the plant watering notification guide that details how to setup Slack + Discord: