Feel like replacing my piece of shit LG with this. It can only soak for a predetermined amount of time and if I try to pause it to soak longer it drains the water in 3 minutes. Plus, scrud!
Probably sell well in a lot of developed world markets for people who just want to limit their electricity use, live away from the grid, have less reliance on complicated electronics, or minimize money use in an expensive society.
Oh and separate your laundry. Don't throw towels, blankets, and clothes in all at the same time.
As for separating colors - in my life I've had a piece of clothing stain other clothes 2 or 3 times. Once I put some white shirts and they came out pink because of another red shirt. Funny thing is, the pink was very uniform, so it looked as if the shirts were originally pink.
If my washing machine breaks, I'll get a second hand one. If I get a brand new washing machine, it will have to have a manual mode where I can set the desired program manually. For example, what is "towel setting"? If I can't see and modify the setting (e.g., A temperature for B minutes at C RPM, then D temp for E min for F RPM, etc.), I wouldn't use it.
Also if you pay close attention you'll notice that things don't come fully clean (old machines didn't either) just "clean enough". Throw some well used dog bedding in with your shirts and this fact might become more readily noticable. So it makes sense to wash like-use with like-use for that reason alone.
Again, wouldn't it be great if we could program the washing machine? A display and a couple of buttons would be enough.
Something like:
Menu ->
New program ->
(automatically assigns it a number, e.g., "14"; no need for fancy names and a keyboard, just write it down) ->
Enter first cycle ->
(gives you options like "let it soak", "rotate", "dispense soap", "remove water" or whatever) ->
(gives you sub-options like temperature, RPM) ->
Enter second cycle ->
(and so on).
I don't know much about washing machines, but it seems doable.
If you wash items of different weights, fabrics, etc. together the load can get unbalanced more easily. Such as as single heavy towel or jacket in with a bunch of light synthetic items.
The "towels" setting uses warmer water and faster spin speed but an overall shorter cycle (at least on my washer) compared to the "normal" cycle. This probably presumes that towels usually are made of cotton and aren't very dirty.
I agree that a fully manual mode would be nice. My washer (LG) doesn't have that but by knowing what the various cycles and optional settings (e.g. soil level, extra rinse) do you can get pretty close to what you want.
Enter "why wifi on your washing machine makes sense"
Sadly, with fast fashion, we've regressed to the point places like Shein/Fashion Nova sell pool attire vs swim suit that is not meant to get wet due to the dyes not holding when wet.
I wish the open source washing machine projects actually took off. From what I remember they were created mostly to help poorer nations, which is a good goal. I've had to hand wash in the past and it was awful. So slow, boring and annoying. And you either have to wring by hand, which ruined several underpants I had, or you have to let the clothes dry naturally, which I didn't try. The hand washing videos say to lay the clothes on a towel, but I didn't have a whole free room to lay down all the clothes, so I wrung them.
I was always confused doing laundry in the US. Warm cycle or cold cycle?
I have 30C, 40C and 60C depending on what I'm washing. I probably have more programs, but never use them. For pillows and stuff I adjust spinning, from 1200 to 400 RPM. And I use special short, low rpm handwash program for wool.
(Side loaded ofcourse, that way the dryer can be on top)
Top loader uselessness is my pet peeve.
Front loaders (just like one in video) wring clothes as they spin. The result difference is day and night.
Wash.
Is clean?
Yes: put in drier.
No: GOTO wash.
Same thing for dishwashers, the “eco” program is often not the best especially if you have an “auto” one.
Eco is just the standard program they have to ship and must use for the energy efficiency rating.
Whereas with other programs they can adjust the settings and times to make it wash better AND use less water/energy.
But for machines that have a table showing power and water use, it’s never the most efficient one (in all the ones I checked). There is always a better program, it’s usually called “auto”.
Maybe it’s different in North America, idk what the rules are there.
Regulation 1016/2010 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2010/1016/oj/eng) is the thing that establishes the various requirements for home dishwashers. It's pretty straightforward (most of the content establishing how efficiency is calculated). It basically just requires the default program to be "suitable to clean normally soiled tableware and that it is the most efficient programme in terms of its combined energy and water consumption for that type of tableware".
I could imagine some issues with how these numbers are calculated that reward "less efficient" devices or something like that, but it's pretty hard to figure out what that could be. Bit of a mystery!
But still I'm inclined to agree with the general sentiment of not micro optimizing things in ways that make people's lives more difficult.