Connected appliances: which premiums are worth paying

Every major appliance is now sold in a connected version, usually at a premium, and the honest answer to “is it worth it?” varies enormously by appliance. For some the connectivity is genuinely useful. For others it is a screen you will never look at attached to a machine that will outlive the app.

Here is our assessment, appliance by appliance, along with the questions worth asking before paying the premium.

The problem with connected appliances

Two structural issues shape everything below.

Appliances outlive software. A washing machine lasts ten to fifteen years, a fridge fifteen or more, an oven longer. Support for a phone app rarely lasts that long, and there is a substantial history of connected features being withdrawn, apps being replaced, and servers being switched off. The washing machine keeps washing; the smart part quietly dies.

Most appliance connectivity is closed. Manufacturers generally expose their appliances to their own app and, sometimes, to a couple of large voice platforms. Integration with your own hub is often limited, unofficial or absent, which means the appliance cannot participate in the automations that would make it useful.

So the question is not just whether a feature is nice. It is whether the feature will still exist in year eight, and whether it can talk to anything other than the maker's app.

Where connectivity genuinely earns the premium

Washing machines and dryers: modest yes. The useful features are a finished-cycle notification and delayed start for cheap electricity. Both are genuinely valuable — and both can be achieved with a metering smart plug on a conventional machine for a fraction of the cost. Where the built-in version wins is knowing which programme and how long remains, plus dryers that can adjust to load. Worth a small premium, not a large one.

Dishwashers: mostly no. A cycle-complete notification is nice and a smart plug provides it. Little else is added.

Ovens: cautious yes, for some. Preheating on the way home is genuinely useful, as is a probe reporting core temperature to your phone rather than requiring you to stand in the kitchen. Be clear that remote starting of an oven raises safety questions, and most manufacturers require a physical confirmation for good reason. Do not defeat that.

Fridges and freezers: yes for monitoring, no for screens. Temperature alerting and door-ajar warnings are properly useful and protect real value. Cameras inside, screens on the door and shopping list features are the least-used premium features in the category, and they are what you are paying for on the expensive models. An external temperature sensor and a plug achieve the valuable part on any fridge.

Robot vacuums: yes. One of the few categories where connectivity is the product rather than an addition. Scheduling, room mapping, no-go zones and integration with occupancy are all core function.

Heat pump tumble dryers: yes, with a tariff. A large flexible load worth shifting deliberately.

Coffee machines: personal. No practical benefit, and a genuine pleasure for some people. That is a legitimate reason.

The features to ignore

Screens on appliances. Almost universally under-used. Your phone is better and already in your pocket.

Cameras inside fridges. Charming in demonstrations, and people do not use them.

Voice assistants built into appliances. Poor microphones, poor speakers, redundant with whatever you already have, and tied to a platform.

Automatic consumable ordering. Convenient and it ties you to one supplier at their price.

“AI” programme selection, which in most cases is a sensor and a lookup table with a marketing name. Sometimes useful, rarely worth a premium.

Recipe integration, which sounds appealing and is used approximately twice.

Questions to ask before paying the premium

1. Does the appliance work fully without connectivity? It should. Any appliance where a core function requires an app or an account is a poor buy.
2. Does it work with anything other than the maker's app? Look for Matter support, an official local interface, or a well-established integration.
3. Is there a local interface, or does everything route through their servers?
4. How long has this manufacturer supported previous apps? Track record is the best predictor.
5. Could a smart plug achieve the same thing? Frequently yes, for a tenth of the cost.
6. Is the premium buying connectivity or just a higher trim level? Often the connected model also has better mechanicals, which may be worth it for other reasons entirely.
7. What data does it collect and share? Some appliance apps collect considerably more than the function requires, and the privacy policy is worth two minutes.

The cheap route to most of the benefit

You can retrofit the genuinely useful parts onto conventional appliances, which is what we would generally do.

A metering smart plug gives cycle-complete notifications, energy figures, cheap-hour scheduling for anything with a delay-start button, and fault detection. This covers washing machines, dishwashers and dryers almost entirely.

A temperature sensor in a fridge and freezer gives the monitoring that matters, with alerting, at a small fraction of the cost of a connected fridge. Use a probe on a lead rather than a whole sensor inside, so the radio is outside the metal box.

A contact sensor on the fridge or freezer door gives door-ajar warnings.

A vibration or accelerometer sensor on a machine detects a running cycle where a plug is impractical, and it works on a hard-wired appliance.

An air quality or humidity sensor in the kitchen and utility room does more for your house than any appliance app.

A leak sensor behind every water-connected appliance, which is the single best money you will spend in a kitchen.

That collection costs less than the premium on one connected appliance and delivers more.

When you do buy connected

A few practices make it less likely to disappoint.

Set it up on a guest network or a separate network segment if you can, so an appliance with questionable firmware is not on the same network as your computers.

Decline data sharing beyond what the function needs, and read what the app asks for.

Do not rely on the connectivity for anything important. Assume it will stop working at some point and check the appliance is fully usable without it.

Keep the manual controls working, and do not buy anything where a physical control has been removed in favour of an app.

Register for firmware updates, since a network-connected appliance with unpatched firmware is a genuine, if modest, security consideration.

Repairability, which matters more than any app

If you are choosing between appliances, this is the specification we would weigh above connectivity every time.

Spare parts availability and how long the manufacturer commits to supplying them. In the European Union, right-to-repair rules now require certain parts to be available for a set number of years for several appliance categories, and manufacturers vary in how well they go beyond the minimum.

Whether an independent engineer can repair it, or whether diagnostics and parts are restricted to authorised service. A machine only the maker can fix is a machine that becomes uneconomic to fix.

Repair scores, where published. France requires a repairability index on several product categories, and the figures are a useful signal even if you are buying elsewhere.

Common failure modes, which are easy to research. Some models have a known weak component and a well-documented fix; others fail in ways that write off the machine.

A connected appliance that cannot be repaired in year seven is worse value than a plain one that can be, however good the app was. And an appliance kept running for fifteen years rather than replaced at eight is by a wide margin the most environmentally significant decision in this article.

Our summary

1. Buy the appliance for the appliance — build quality, efficiency, capacity, repairability, spare parts availability.
2. Treat connectivity as a minor tiebreak, not a reason.
3. Retrofit the useful parts with plugs and sensors, which work on any appliance and can be moved to the next one.
4. Pay for connectivity where it is the product — robot vacuums — or where it shifts a large flexible load.
5. Assume the app will outlive its usefulness before the appliance does.

Point three is the one we would emphasise. Sensors and plugs move house with you and survive the appliance. Built-in connectivity does neither.