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I have a clothes dryer with capacitive touch buttons. When the ambient conditions are just right, static will build up when it is drying clothes, and it will change its own settings randomly.

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my washer/dryer also has capacitive touch and will usually pause itself this way during a dry cycle if I forget to put the keypad lock on.

it's an absolute failure of product design in my eyes

Aren't dryers grounded?

Yes. Although I'm not sure if mine was designed to ground the plastic front panel that the buttons are on.

If a dryer circuit was installed before 1996 there is a good chance it won't be grounded. Before 1996 the US national electrical code allowed 3 wire dryer circuits. Two hot wires and one neutral.

In 1996 that was changed to require new dryer circuits to be 4 wire. Two hots wires, one neutral, and one ground. Existing 3 wire dryer circuits were allowed to remain in use.

Regardless of being grandfathered in (allowed), you should update your drier to a 4-prong cord/outlet (which is ACTUALLY grounded). This does not always require stringing an entire new circuit — NEC (US) allows driers to be grounded with just a single 10awg wire.

Particularly if you operate rentals, the legal liability is perhaps almost as much as NOT retrofitting GFCIs into baths/kitchens.

SRC: not your electrician

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