An Internet of Things System for a Laundry Monitoring Service

High-end smart washing machines available on the market require proprietary devices and software to view their status. In this paper, we purpose a simple, cost effective, and novel approach to classify the availability of a traditional washing machine called Laundry Monitoring Service (LMS). A simple inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor is used to detect vibrations from the washing machine unit. Each LMS device is connected to the network through a system on chip (SoC) capable of supporting WiFi. A summary statistic, in particular, the mean acceleration amplitude along the 3 axes over a short period of time are compared to a governing threshold for washing machine states. The proposed LMS system is easy to install, scalable, robust in terms of data security, and developed on open source platforms with cost-effective hardware components. The concept of the LMS device is validated by devising and evaluating a prototype. Moreover, the LMS system will be beneficial to people, especially in a pandemic situation in which social distancing is crucial, as we can avoid overcrowding of laundry rooms by enabling users to get the status of the washing machines and notifications about availability remotely.