A Chinese consumer said a Midea smart washing machine used 411.52MB of traffic after being connected to home Wi-Fi for 19 hours and 40 minutes, based on figures shown by a router screenshot posted on a short-video platform. The post triggered privacy concerns over what connected home appliances may be transmitting.
According to reports from Red Star News and The Paper, the consumer questioned why the washing machine had uploaded or otherwise consumed more than 400MB of data in less than a day. The post drew nearly 1,000 comments, with some users worrying that household devices might be sending personal information in the background.
The screenshot showed the washing machine connected through the 2.4GHz band on a home router. The figures cited in media reports referred to total traffic consumption. They did not specify how much was upload traffic and how much was download traffic.
Midea says one wash cycle sends 100KB to 200KB
In a statement issued on Sept. 10, Midea said it had completed a full technical review and found no large-scale data transmission behavior as described online. The company said each wash cycle transmits only necessary information, including remote-control commands and washing status, with total data volume of 100KB to 200KB per cycle. It also said the transmission is encrypted throughout and that the machine does not collect or upload users’ personal information.
Using the article’s conversion of 1MB to 1,000KB, 411.52MB would equal roughly 2,000 to 4,100 wash cycles’ worth of data transmission. For a household doing one load per day, that would take more than five years to accumulate.
Three different explanations emerged over two days
Red Star News reported that on the afternoon of Sept. 9, one of its reporters called Midea’s national customer-service hotline while posing as a regular consumer. The customer-service representative said the washing machine’s internet connection is used for remote control and synchronization of operating status, and that it does not privately collect sensitive information. When asked whether using more than 400MB in a little over 19 hours was normal, the representative checked internally and replied that it was "a normal phenomenon," while suggesting users turn off the connection when it is not needed.
Later that evening, a person described by Red Star News as Midea after-sales staff called back and offered a different explanation. That person said poor Wi-Fi conditions at home could not be ruled out, which might cause the washing machine to disconnect and reconnect frequently, raising traffic use. The same person also said the router’s statistics might not be accurate and that an in-home inspection would be needed. The consumer who made the original post later confirmed to Red Star News that Midea had contacted him and that he had provided the washing machine’s serial number.
On the morning of Sept. 10, Midea’s washing machine business unit released its formal statement and said it would send engineers to the home to "investigate the source of abnormal network traffic." That put the company’s formal explanation far from the earlier customer-service comment. The 411MB figure described as normal by customer service was more than 2,000 times higher than the company’s stated 100KB to 200KB of data per wash cycle.
Media outlined three possible causes
Sichuan Daily Online summarized three possible explanations. The first was firmware updates. Smart appliances, much like smartphones, can receive update packages pushed by manufacturers. A full update file can range from tens of megabytes to several hundred megabytes, and an automatic background download could quickly drive traffic higher.
The second possibility was weak Wi-Fi, which could cause repeated disconnections and reconnections. Each reconnection may require the device to resend records and status data.
The third was inaccurate router accounting. Because IP addresses in a home network can be assigned dynamically, traffic generated by another device could end up being logged under the washing machine’s name.
A similar case had surfaced before
The report also cited an earlier case from 2024, when a Chinese internet user asked why an LG washing machine had used 3.6GB of traffic in a single day. In a screenshot from that case, the machine showed 3.57GB uploaded and about 100MB downloaded on one day. The post has since recorded 18.92 million views.
Tom's Hardware later collected usage screenshots from other LG washing machine users, and most of those showed less than 1MB of traffic per day. One widely cited explanation was that ASUS router statistics were inaccurate. Johnie also said the next day that ASUS tools were not accurate when calculating iMessage traffic usage.
Tom's Hardware wrote that the real cause might never be fully established. Johnie ultimately chose to keep the washing machine offline. The router figures, the report said, can only show that traffic was recorded under the washing machine. To determine whether the device itself actually sent the data, records from the device side would still be needed.
What Midea said users can do
On what consumers should do if they see abnormal traffic from a smart washing machine, the report said Midea customer service described the network function as mainly for remote control and syncing operating status. Users can switch off the washing machine’s Wi-Fi when it is not needed, and washing functions will not be affected. Midea has also said it will send engineers for an on-site inspection in this 411MB traffic case.