Idk man, I think it depends what the weather is like, and whether or not your home is climate controlled.
If I forget my laundry for a mere 4 hours in summer, it gets mildewy (gets hot and humid and I don’t have central air, only window units, so they don’t always run), and needs to be entirely rewashed on the sanitary setting.
This is the case regardless how often I bleach/clean the machine, I think the house water supply is the problem, but regardless, when it’s hot, it can be panic inducing even if it’s your own. That extra time to re-run (sanitary is 1.5 hrs to the 45 min of a normal cycle) has fucked up my day several times.
I spent two years stumbling through learning Home Assistant just so I could make custom sensors to alert me all through the house when my laundry is done.
Not the guy you're asking, but this can be done quite easily with wifi power plugs that measure electricity use.
I've done this for my old washer and my current dryer.
First you need to hook the power measing plug up into home assistant and collect some data for various washing programs, then you can make some automations that trigger on specific power consumptions.
Yep. I've got smart plugs on my washer and dryer, and when the cycle ends it sends an alert to my phone, makes an announcement, and changes some lights to specific colors. Worth it. Otherwise I might just forget about my laundry for days.
Lol have some in the machine now
The plan was always "do it after breakfast", so I'm still good, check back in a couple of hours though 😂
What generally works for me is filling the machine at the end of a day and setting the delay so it runs early in the morning, then by the time I've had some food and a little energy boost to deal with it it's only been waiting for a couple of hours (tbf any less than about 7-8 hours should still be fine, anything longer and I might run the load again lol)