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My kids would routinely put in too much powder, which would gunk up the dispensing mechanism, requiring my time and effort to clean it out and fix it. Eventually the dispenser broke entirely and had to be replaced. We since switched to pods and haven't had any problems with the dispenser. The pods are worth every extra cent.

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I just want a dishwasher and washing machine that I can load with gallons of soap once a month or whatever, and let it do the detail work for me.

I know they exist in the commercial realm, but I'm not 100% certain the wife is ready for a Hobart machine in the kitchen ...

I've used a washing machine like this. For the feature to be useful, it has to be correctly implemented. Unfortunately, all r&d budget apparently, goes into developing vendor's mobile application and wifi connectivity, not on basic mechanics inside.

which is still weird, because those apps are always terrible and the connection always insecure

Apps are not for you, but for advertisers. UX is a secondary concern, generating additional revenue stream is the goal.

That’s how my Miele washing machine works and I love it.

You put two large detergent containers in (one for whites and one for colours) and then forget about them. The machine reminds you when you’re running low and allows you to reorder more thru the app.

I have no idea if it’s cheaper or not, but anecdotally they feel like they last a long time. Ultimately, I don’t care, because of the convenience and the fact I know the machine is working out the correct dose per wash (the machine has a touchscreen interface that allows you to state what’s in the wash: T-shirts, denim, towels, etc. the level of soiling, etc. Then it works out the temperature, duration, drying time, and correct detergent type and dosage)

Miele has home dishwashers that do this now. But like all things consumer, it's a proprietary system that's designed to keep you locked into a subscription relationship with the company.

Recently bought a washing machine.

I looked at Miele, saw the requirement for using their refill containers (TwinDos†). Noticed an option for using not theirs as a fallback but it all seemed a bit convoluted.

Then I took a look at some high-ish end LG and they had sort of the same principle (EZDispense††), except the dispenser sits like a usual tray that you fill in with regular off-the-shelf liquid stuff, and then you're good for a while. The whole wifi/app stuff is entirely optional, the machine is fully functional through the panel without the app. So I got that one, very happy so far.

† https://www.mieleusa.com/c/laundry-tech-washing-machines-aut...

†† https://www.lg.com/in/magazine/easing-laundry-with-ezdispens...

I have one of these. The detergent gizmo is a hard plastic shell with an interesting shape, powdered detergent inside, and a plastic film cover that looks like it’s heat-sealed on. It contains no electronics whatsoever. You can refill it, and the only limitation is that it’s kind of awkward to open, fill, and re-seal. The easiest way IMO is to cut a large flap in the hard plastic on the sides, then tape it down after refilling. It works fine.

Also, the Miele powdered detergent, in my personal opinion, sucks. And it leaves some residue behind. Yuck.

True for their dishwashers. But to their credit, Miele's washing machines actually come with two additional cassettes that you can fill with your (liquid) detergent of choice. You don't have to use Miele's proprietary ones.

PowerDisk? As long as you load salt and rinse aid, it works like a charm. As you said, if you want to save a bit of money, you can 3D print a replacement. But they last long enough that I don’t mind the cost.

What do salt and rinse aid have to do with it? Those have been things you load into a reservoir when prompted for years. And for those of us who live in HN’s homeland where the water is very soft, you may get better results by not loading rinse aid (there’s some moderately compelling evidence that rinse aid is rather toxic to digestive tracts, and it doesn’t even have much rinsing benefit if you’re rinsing with soft-enough and low-enough-TDS water), and the salt is also unnecessary with soft water. You do need to poke at the dishwasher settings to make it happy without rinse aid and salt, but this is well documented in the manual.

> What do salt and rinse aid have to do with it?

If you should be using them and aren’t, the detergent in the disks doesn’t work. With them (I live with hard water, though a home filter takes a lot of it out) the disks work quite well in my experience.

I had that on a GE Profile from I think 1999 if I remember right. It was pretty nice. I think it's still a feature on some of them.

That dishwasher was great and lasted over 20 years. The previous owners had definitely abused it and never cleaned it. I repaired it and had about the best dishwasher for a few more years. Eventually the main logic board went out (can't blame it too much, had electrical issues that killed a few things) and a replacement board was going to cost a few hundred dollars in parts even from questionable third party sellers. Seemed to be a good bit to sink on what was a highly abused >20 year old washing machine at the time.

as someone who's gone down the rabbit hole of dishwasher home repair, I've created more problems than I've solved. I agree that maintenance is important, but when you get into replacing the seals and gaskets that can result in water flooding into your kitchen, i decided recently to draw a line. I'm now the proud owner of some fancy leak detection / moisture detection IOS products as a result. (and yes I'm aware there are better, low tech solutions like the "frog" on the market, but I chose to torture myself instead)

Put a drop of food colour on a paper towel. Let dry. Then leave that where drips might happen. The colour will run. I leave it for a few days after every plumbing repair.

Funny, I use toilet paper and check if it gets wrinkled, but I like your method better.

Yeesh I'm starting to sound like a Bosch shill but they've had leak detection in all but their bottom rung dishwashers for a few generations. The current ones will actively pump the water out when a leak is detected.

I was almost tempted into buying an all-in-one unit that washes and dries. Only a few brands are releasing these heat-pump based models currently and it doesn't seem quite ready for mainstream release. But the LG model I found did have the ability to preload it with detergent and run up to 60 cycles before filling again. I almost bought it just for that feature. But went with the older more reliable model instead. Maybe in 10 years after this washing machine dies the feature will be more prevalent and reliable.

https://www.lg.com/us/washcombo-all-in-one

I think long term, having two "all-in-one" combo washer and driers would make way more sense than separate washing and drying units. But the price for functionality just isn't there yet.

Both the LG and GE heat pump all-in-one units come with auto detergent dispensers. For the life of me I can't imagine wanting one more thing to break, especially on an LG product as LG is notoriously poor with parts availability.

My Samsung bespoke combo washer dryer has that feature. It uses less detergent than we are used to so my wife uses pods, but I think this is better un general since the clothes come out clean even if they don’t smell like detergent. So not only do I not need to load detergent, I don’t need to transfer to the dryer. Still have to load sanitizer in unfortunately.

I heard the dryer in those is slow and breakable. Does it take forever to dry stuff?

In the few months I’ve had the Samsung All-in-One my experience has been at least a 50% increase in time spent drying compared to an LG stack I had previously. Also, when complete, if you do get to it within 5 to 10 minutes of finishing, it feels damp, but that clears on its own after 15 to 30 minutes or so if it sitting in the dryer with the door automatically opened.

Very pleased with the experience personally. I am very happy to trade not having to transfer the laundry in the middle with it simply being done when I get back to it a few hours later. YMMV.

Does the Samsung use the same drying method as the LG did?

Older dryers (that needed a vent) were inefficient, but faster at drying. They constantly pumped damp, heated air out of the vent.

Modern condensing dryers keep the heat in the system for a more energy efficient drying cycle but the condensing process is slower.

Samsung has both heat pump (the one talked about above) and vented (similar to normal dryers) versions. LG doesn’t have a vented version yet. Condensers are slower than heat pumps, if you don’t have a vent and/or a 240V outlet, heat pump is the way to go. I personally chose a vented one because it was replacing existing machines. In NYC, heat pumps are more popular since a lot of apartments don’t come with vents or 240V (and definitely in the UK where they put the washer/dryer in the kitchen, you also see these all over Japan, all heat pump versions).

Mine is vented, not heat pump, so the drying time doesn’t change from other vented solutions.

I am already putting items into the dishwasher, so the marginal effort for me to add the dishwasher tab is very low.

https://www.mieleusa.com/c/powerdisk-automatic-dishwasher-de...

Samsung has some that do this, but their appliances have some other big downsides

miele dishwashers as mentioned below.

LG washing machines. And I think Miele washing machines as well

He says that having the ability to tailor the amount of powder for the size of the load is one of the selling points of powder. But I'm guessing most people would much rather waste the few cents of savings in exchange for not needing to think about their dishes even that tiny bit extra.

amount of water used in washing cycle is +/- same, not dependent on size of load. reducing amount of powder will create weaker concentration and reduce cleaning capabilities of machine/detergent.

in reality, reducing amount of powder won't change much most of the time, because majority of cleaning happens due to physical action of (hot) water. there were multiple times when I was forgetting to put detergent and dishes went out clean. it mostly makes difference for some very dry/backed on stuff.

Or just, you know, wait till the machine is filled before running it. If that takes too long you can just run a soaking cycle midway through.

Get 2 steps of the dishwasher shelves, then when it's done swap them, and you never have to put the dishes away

Do you actually do this? I’ve thought about this but don’t have the space for it.

My process is to use cheap Walmart powder for prewash and Kirkland pods in the dispenser. Avoids any over filling issues.

I used to just use the Kirkland pods and they worked fine too. The reason I started using powder in prewash is to get any loose fat dissolved so that it doesn’t clog over a period of time, not sure if that’s a valid concern. And yes, I do run hot water before starting the dishwasher.

My issue is the pods fail to dissolve ~5% of the time and leave a gunk that clogs the dispenser which again requires time and effort to clean. I'm convinced by the video to try powder again but I've had the filming issue with almost every powder I've tried. So, we'll see what happens...

I have a pet theory this is due to a wet pod tray: the pod's film partially melts and sticks to the tray before it's released. I made a habit of wiping the tray dry with a piece of paper before loading the pod and this stopped happening to me.

How do you wash the piece of paper?

I'm convinced pods broke my dishwasher. I switched to powder years ago and haven't had a problem since.

Yep.

I (as is common for many middle-class South Africans) have a domestic worker who cleans the house, and in general you just have to accept that domestic workers will tend to use quite a bit more cleaning products than is necessary. At least with tablets, they will always use a set amount.

It's not their money that they're needlessly wasting and the thing not being clean is a more immediately noticeable problem with their work than you finding you're spending a lot more than usual on cleaning products.

It also wouldn't work to try give them a budget on cleaning products as then you're encouraging them to skimp on using enough so they get more money in their pocket.

Although our domestic worker is a lovely person who I help out as much as I can, at the end of the day she has limited skills and education, so can't demand very much of a salary, hence why she and many others in her position is a domestic worker.

When you're the one who does all the cleaning yourself and pay for the products you use, you'll try find the amount to use that definitely gets the job done, but isn't needlessly wasteful.

I also like the convenience of the tablets, you don't have to think about the amount or possibly making a mess or pouring too much powder in, etc.

Interesting enough, where I live we also can have domestic workers without being filthy rich. But we've seen the exactly opposite problem: people trust a single product for everything and will use the least amount of it because "it's good enough". The current person working at our place uses dish detergent to clean the entire house unless we tell her everyday to not do it. The previous one used bleach, and ruined most of our bath and hand towels.

Is it not possible to teach your children to put the proper amount of detergent?

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