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Comment by williamscales | Hacker News Reader

> Some washing machines, the suit alleges, vibrate violently under heavy loads, causing the tub to “become unfastened, resulting in a dramatic centrifugal explosion that destroys the machine and nearby property.”

Any washing machine, if not level and if overloaded, will shake violently. The picture in the article showed a very small, seemingly fragile washing machine. I imagine one must take extra care to not overload such a machine. In fact, I know that these machines do have warnings to not overload them. What more could reasonably be expected of Samsung?

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> In fact, I know that these machines do have warnings to not overload them. What more could reasonably be expected of Samsung?

Standard IANAL.

Unfortunately companies can't always offload all their liability to the customer in this manner. We will see with the result of this lawsuit whether this is such a case.

They're likely going to argue that a reasonable person who buys a washing machine expects that it will continue to operate safely with any amount or configuration of clothing so long as the it fits in the drum and the machine isn't modified. Sure, if you 'overfill'[1] the machine one might expect the quality of the wash to degrade, but not that the machine will become dangerous.

From a practical standpoint, it's perfectly possible to create a washing machine that can handle any amount and configuration of clothing simply by making a tumbler that strong enough to handle many times the weight of clothes. Or the machine could simply refuse to operate if it detects that it's over weight or off-balance. So Samsung won't get very far if they try to argue that it's not possible to manufacture such a machine and that their customers have no choice but to take precautions. But undoubtedly they will argue that it's cost prohibitive and that their customers are responsible for taking those precautions in exchange for the simpler and cheaper design.

[1] I use scare quotes because for sure they will call into question Samsung's use and meaning of the term.

I think it's not "offloading their liability to the customer", if company says that the washing machine can take 4 kg and the customer then loads it with 7 kg. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that if you do this, the machine will not be able to maintain its balance.

(Seen that happen and customer complain, in no way specific to Samsung.)

No, I don't think it's reasonable that a modern washing machine will implode due to overloading. As others have pointed out, this is a solved problem, and I would expect Samsung to have built standard safeguards.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect the washing machine to not start if the load is too high.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect the washing machine to have bad performance if the load is too high, but explosion is beyond acceptable.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. All it takes is a simple weight sensor, couple your suggestion with an "overweight" LED to give the user some feedback and this becomes a non-issue.

Except if your weight sensor if the first thing that breaks when the machine gets old.

I think all this is completely over the head. Say what maybe 3 machines exploded? That's far below the "noise" you have in every thing, it is statistically irrelevant.

Also, side question: when I pay for a product like a baby stroller from a western company, which part of this money is spent on "law abiding", i.e. the verbose amount of warnings sticked everywhere and all the lawyers behind? I just bought one and this kind stroller tells me loudly I'm stupid from every side of it. I had a Japanese stroller before: cheaper, lighter, just better for kids and parents in every respect, and a just a brief non-liability warning. If I put 4 ten year old fat kid is will break, OBviously. That would be my fault.

Would you say the same thing if a manufacturer produced a car that exploded if you put too much weight in the trunk? Or if it flooded the cabin with carbon monoxide if you missed an oil change deadline? Both are "covered in the manual".

This "explosion" was not actually an explosion, just an imbalance and mechanical failure.

But if I put way too much weight in the trunk of the car, and start driving, and the rear axle fails and there is an accident, yes, I'm still saying it's a user error.

(It's by the way worth considering how much weight you do put in the trunk, or perhaps more importantly, how much you put in a trailer. I transported some concrete garden patio slabs and without calculating the actual weight, put a bit too many of them both in the trunk and in the trailer. It was definitely not fun to drive.)

I think the issue here is, as many other have pointed out, that the imbalanced/weight problem for washing machines has been a solved problem for nearly 50 years. It's fine that we're moving away from all mechanical detection methods and more energy/water efficient washers, but removing the previously solved operational safety functionality just seems silly. I completely agree it's an issue of operator error, but that's not the problem - the problem is that it was a _solved_ issue of operator error that is now a problem again because it seems like there were no safeguards put in place. It would seem to me that there has to be a grand number of chances to figure this out during the QA stage for these washers and determine a simple software solution, even if that solution is the washing session cancels, drains, and the LED errors with "Overloaded" or something. The owners may be annoyed, but at least the machine isn't ruined and it can train them to use the correct load size.

Honestly, I don't think it's too unreasonable for any given person not to be able to estimate the mass of a load of laundry. I assume the recommendations (4kg, as you suggested) are educated guesses at best as it's hard to tell how much water any given item will retain during the spin cycle. Since it's an imprecise calculation anyways, wouldn't it make more sense to instead just let the machine dictate its own limits so the user can adjust their washing habits subsequently?

edit: mistyped and forgot to write "...because it seems like there were no safeguards put in place."

cough Tesla cough The song was fucking different then, wasn't it? "Manual, warnings, itd itp" Disclaimer: I still agree that unless those washing mashines were abused in a drastic manner Samsung should feel the hurt.

> Unfortunately

Fortunately.

Indeed, this feels like it's just an attempt at riding onto the "Samsung=explosion" bandwagon. A quick search on YouTube shows plenty of washing machines spinning themselves apart, not only Samsung but LG, GE, and a few others, and going back several years too. This failure mode is not new, it's not specific to Samsung, and IMHO it's also partly operator error combined with the increased fragility of cost-down optimisation. I wouldn't even call it an explosion, as the drum itself remains intact --- all the damage is from the extreme vibrations breaking off everything else.

...and just for fun, there's also plenty of videos of deliberately unbalanced machines doing the same, for a bit of sordid entertainment and as a reminder of why you should always take care to balance the load. Here's one rather amusing example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq6T5BojXc8

To be fair to the operators, they may not have reason to believe that their machines are overloaded or unbalanced. I've washed a lot of clothes in my life. It's been my experience that even properly loaded machines will occasionally shift the load in such a way as to become severely unbalanced. I don't think it's such a cut and dried case of operator negligence. The machines themselves provide little to no feedback to the operator. Older machines had clutches installed which would prevent the machine from spinning the drum hard enough to vibrate the machine apart. If Samsung et. al. have removed this hardware safeguard from their machine, they better have a damn good story to justify why they don't need it.

Direct drive?

That said, then there should be a weighing mechanism and correct slow start procedure to balance the load. Probably an accelerometer to slow down if a vibration threshold is exceeded.

I am talking about safeguards costing pennies per machine, including implementation.

The direct drive machines in my apartment complex will clutch if they detect too much vibration.

And here is the amusing context for that particular example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psEomYrj30U

Consumers generally have a quite reasonable expectation that their products aren't dangerous in non-obvious ways. A knife might cut me if heavily used or misused, and I couldn't possibly sue in that case; if the blade leached toxins into the food I cut with it, I'd sue and so would anyone else.

Much law turns on various "reasonable person" standards. A reasonable person, IMHO, does't expect a violent, potentially lethal, mechanical disintegration just for overloading the drum by 10%.

"... potentially lethal."

With a heavy thing that rotates at 1600min-1 you should think what you are doing and consider the thing being potentially lethal.

We've invented consumer regulations so that you don't have to fear death or injury from a random common item you buy.

Otherwise... are you keeping your smartphone in your pocket? Are you aware that this thing is basically a live grenade, held together by cheap manufacturing and good wishes of engineers who designed the battery controller?

Yes. Accidentally (!) I have a Note 7 ;-)

On a sidenote:

I think physics always trumps "consumer regulations". I do not believe in the power of law above physics, e.g. IMHO a law that declares gravity illegal would not work.

A heavy thing rotating at 1600/min is potentially lethal, you can put as much engineering in it as you want. Yes you can make it safer, but it remains potentially lethal. It's the physics of a heavy thing that rotates at 1600/min.

So is the physics of lithium-ion batteries. Just as you don't worry about your phone exploding in your pocket (the generic you; you specifically should worry given you have Note 7 :P), you shouldn't have to worry about a washing machine accidentally mauling you. Sure it may happen, but consumer regulations are written to direct manufacturing towards minimizing that kind of occurences to below "I have to consciously care about it" level.

Yes, and to completely destroy my karma here for the 3rd downvoted to the abyss comment:

A lithium-ion battery is potentially lethal. You can have as much regulations, laws and red tape as you like, you can't change the fact that lithium-ion batteries are potentially lethal.

And if you overload a washing maschine by stuffing in a 50% more than it was designed for, you should be aware that you do this to a potentially lethal thing.

And putting a "Don't put a cat into a microwave" sticker on a microwave doesn't change the physics of the microwave, it is potentially lethal to the cat. You can't regulate the physics of microwaves.

Same goes for cars. Potentially lethal. If you drive it beyond it's - or your - capabilities, it will kill you - car manufacturing regulations can't save you. It is potentially lethal. It is potentially lethal even with all the regulations and driving the car within your and it's capabilities, e.g. when a tire explodes. Regulations don't save you. Using potentially lethal thinks is potentially lethal.

No one's suggesting regulation can overturn the laws of physics, it's about assigning responsibility for their consequences in such a way that incentivises safe design.

And if the incentives are structured right, it can be entirely reasonable for consumers to assume that potentially risky things are in fact entirely safe.

>you can't change the fact that lithium-ion batteries are potentially lethal.

And yet you feel comfortable carrying it around in your pocket. Which is exactly the point.

Why should washing machines be any different?

Agreed: the law does not trump physics [0]. Consumer safety regulations don't require safeguards to be perfect, just to properly address normal use and various failure modes, and that's what Samsung failed to do here, in contrast to basically every other washing machine manufacturer.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_waves

"in contrast to basically every other washing machine manufacturer."

No, see my other comment and search for exploding LG and Whirlpool machines on Youtube.

There's considering it potentially lethal generally, and considering it an actual mortal risk if I sneak a couple of extra t-shirts into the wash. Understanding that something I own contains a potentially lethal mechanism doesn't void my reasonable expectation that safeguards have been built in that handle the intended and common use cases--like every other washing machine sold since WWII.

"like every other washing machine sold since WWII"

Youtube seems to disagree with Whirpool, GE, LG and many more machines "exploding" e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z4fjiCz6tU (LG)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNpRqxdsQAY (Whirlpool)

Yes, this happens to other manufacturers. It's also extremely atypical. Samsung is in trouble because, as with their Note 7s, there's a basic design flaw or lack of safeguard that's causing/allowing it to happen with significant frequency. No one's claiming the law can prevent this entirely. It demonstrably can cause manufacturers to build safer products.

>In fact, I know that these machines do have warnings to not overload them. What more could reasonably be expected of Samsung?

The question of what to "expect" is beyond my pay-grade, but this sounds like a design problem.

The traditional solution to this problem is an interlock (eg microwave doors). An accelerometer might sense when vibrations exceed safe limits and limit the drum speed or cancel the cycle.

As Don Norman points out, text labels are a sign of unclear design.[1] Do washing machine users and and washing machine designers have the same definition of "overloading?" Can you show it graphically? Project a laser level? Change the shape of the door or front cover? A visual line directly in the drum itself? (the drum ideally returns to a 'home' position)

[1] http://99percentinvisible.org/article/norman-doors-dont-know...

Odds are that it does sense abnormal vibrations but that there is a corner case where it gets up to speed and a load shift causes it to blow out before the stopping mechanism kicks in.

At least the shell should be strong enough to not turn into shrapnel.

My mom's old Kenmore washer, from the 1960s, had a shut-off and buzzer triggered by an off-balance load. It's nothing complicated or novel.

Samsung (and LG) washers have design peculiarities that seem to be unique to them. For example, the bearings are actually part of the drum, so if they fail (a not-uncommon occurrence), you end up effectively having to replace the entire washer. (Ask me how I know!) So it doesn't surprise me that Samsung has other engineering issues baked into their products.

Every washing machine now has bearings as part of the drum, so if they fail you have to replace the entire washer (at least here in the UK). It's not a Samsung design peculiarity, it's just another example of the rise of planned obsolescence.

A modern washing machine, if not level and/or overloaded, will shut off. And then you'll have to rebalance your load and turn it back on again. This has been common since decades ago.

Is it too much to expect Samsung to have implemented a standard feature everyone else in the industry doesn't seem to have a problem with?

Warnings only get you so far. A reasonable consumer might expect overloading the machine to cause vibration and shaking, maybe damage to the motor. But not that level of physical destruction and damage to nearby property.

It should be reasonable to fill the drum in the washing machine with clothes you expect it to wash. It is borderline fraud to make a washing machine that can hold 10 shirts but explodes as soon as you run it with more than 6. They have a label that says don't overload it, but without explicit markings that say a load is 6 shirts I would assume overloading meant the drum can hold 10 so don't put 14 in there. It isn't as if the user is doing something unexpected like loading it with bricks.

It is borderline libel to imply this is the case without sources and description of the load.

More than one person can play this game.

"What more could reasonably be expected of Samsung?"

Goodness knows, I'm sure making a noisy beeping sound, printing "Load too heavy/unbalanced" on the LCD and refusing to run would be totally unreasonable ?

If it turns out that a mounting bracket or some other structure used to hold the tub in place has failed, either from corrosion or fatigue, then it should be expected that Samsung take responsibility for the problem.

You design these things to handle the load and stresses seen in an imbalance before the safety mechanism can shut it down.

> In fact, I know that these machines do have warnings to not overload them. What more could reasonably be expected of Samsung?

Overload detection and automatic shutdown in case of excessive loads maybe?

Well that's just bad hazards risk analysis and engineering. It goes to show that Samsung didn't account for the possibility of the explosions bit or even worse, knowingly ignored the risk of the explosions without putting in some sort of safety mechanism to halt the progression of risk.

Safety can be easily explained by the Swiss cheese model. In order for a catastrophic safety incident to occur, usually you need a series of events to align one after another like having the holes of several Swiss cheese layers match up before you can go straight through.

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