I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAX2_mPr9W8

by hnaccount_rng • 9 months ago

567 491 9 months ago

383toast• 9 months ago

summary:

The creator argues that most dishwashers are designed to use a pre-wash dose and a main wash dose of detergent, a fundamental often ignored by single-dose pods, and presents independent ASTM testing confirming the new powder matches or exceeds the performance of a leading premium pod. The video also features a detailed demonstration using temperature logging and peanut butter to stress the importance of purging cold water from the hot water supply line before running a dishwasher, particularly in North America, to ensure the water reaches the optimal enzymatic temperature needed for effective cleaning. This is further reinforced by showing how adding pre-wash detergent dramatically improves the initial cleaning phase, especially with fats and oils.

suprjami• 9 months ago

Thanks for the summary.

American dishwashers don't have their own heater? All dishwashers I've seen in Australia only have cold water supply.

midnitewarrior• 9 months ago

They do, but they are generally confined to 10 amps, so they do not heat quickly.

Rebelgecko3• 9 months ago

American dishwashers are typically hooked up to hot water. Some will have heaters but they're not that powerful and they may only run for the main wash cycle

devilbunny3• 9 months ago

They do. I didn't realize this until my natural gas supply company decided to replace my meter on a Friday. Without alerting me ahead of time so that I could, you know, plan to be gone while my house had no hot water.

Whenever natural gas supply is turned off in the US, for any reason, only the gas company can turn it back on. And they can't do so if there's a leak at all. You have to call a plumber to come out, detect the leaks, and fix them. After that, you can call the gas company to come back out (but not on a weekend) to turn it back on. And a same-day request for service requires someone to be home ALL DAY after it's called in.

And this is how I ended up showering at work for three days that week after not having had one over the weekend.

vel0city2• 9 months ago

A dishwasher cycle is usually only going to run for a specific period of time. Its more effective it if starts that time closer to the proper temperature rather than relying on waiting for the heater to get the temperature up to that time. Especially on the pre-rinse cycle, where the heater may or (probably) many not engage.

reaperducer2• 9 months ago

American dishwashers don't have their own heater?

Some do, some don't.

The ones that do vary in ability by overall dishwasher quality.

The ones that don't are hooked up to the kitchen's hot water line.

This is considered more energy efficient because a home's hot water heater (whether electric, gas, or another fuel) is better at heating the water in a bulk capacity than a tiny heater in the dishwasher.

The downside is that the cold water between the big water heater and the dishwasher has to be purged first for it to be really effective. If your hot water heater is in the other side of the wall, no problem. If it's six rooms away, problem.

WheatMillington2• 9 months ago

Same in NZ, never seen a dishwasher with a hot water connection.

mrandish• 9 months ago

Some US washers don't but many do. However, US washers tend to not heat water as quickly or to as high of a temp. The video cites two reasons: 1. US power being 110V vs 220v. 2. US dishwasher heating elements being limited to 800 or 1000 watts because many are designed to potentially share one 20A residential circuit with an oven and/or fridge due to possibly being retrofitted into a kitchen built before built-in dishwashers were standard and manufacturers not wanting to create different models for retrofit vs new installs.

alvah4• 9 months ago

This has always struck me as dumb, as until recently it was far cheaper to use your existing (gas-fired) hot water than to use a resistive element. However, with gas going out of fashion (and already hugely expensive in the Eastern states), and abundant solar PV, the calculus has changed.

totallymike4• 9 months ago

I can’t speak to Australian dishwashers, but trying to skip the video by catching a summary has failed you. Heating is discussed extensively in the video

fsckboy3• 9 months ago

traditionally (in household washing machine time) US houses were large and had a lot more hot water capacity for the whole house, and putting a heater into individual appliances was not necessary/cost effective.

retrofitting old traditional houses (especially stone) with higher capacity plumbing was expensive and infeasible, so putting heaters in appliances was a cope for markets that needed it.

mattclarkdotnet• 9 months ago

Quite, another thing to add to the list of USAian weird exceptions.

graemep2• 9 months ago

My fairly cheap dishwasher in the UK has its own heater, but you can attach it to a hot water supply, which may save money as gas is so much cheaper than electricity.

tguvot26• 9 months ago

i have miele dishwasher with detergent powder cartridge that allows dishwasher to dispense it at will. it never used during pre-wash cycle in any of the programs that dishwasher has.

tmsh2• 9 months ago

Interestingly the Gemini summary is nowhere near as good. But when it is... how helpful will that be! So many things with a very good summary will save so much time / avoid having to dive into unless truly in need of the details.

But the quality of the summary - and maybe the ability to expand it if slightly more details are required - and the low latency with that - are all super important. In that sense, AI can potentially save a lot of time in getting the right information quickly.

alvah4• 9 months ago

I summarise YT videos with Gemini all the time. You can easily control the length and depth of the summary & get it to focus on particular things etc, before investing time in watching it, only to find out it's promotional, superficial, clickbait, or some combination of all 3.

losvedir• 9 months ago

This has been his stance for a long time. He has a lot of dishwasher videos for some reason!

One thing I can't get a good answer to is whether the "prewash" step is universally the case or not. I have a good Bosch dishwasher and there's no compartment for a bit of pre-wash detergent. I don't even know if my dishwasher cycle has a pre-wash step. I would assume the dishwasher manufacturer knows what's best.

The owner's manual gives advice about not pre-rinsing the dishes because the food bits actually help the wash cycle, so I'm wondering if it works differently from the two-step process in this video.

woodpanel3• 9 months ago

Pods have become so ubiquitous that many companies ditched that powder compartment altogether. But you don't need one anyways just pour it into the cabin.

The video explains why there always is a pre-wash step. Regardless of whether it comes with a pre-wash-powder compartment or not. I will try his solution.

tonymet9• 9 months ago

his dishwasher detergent videos are a good example of an "improved" product being more expensive and less effective (like disposable razors).

With better understanding you can achieve far better results. I no longer rinse or even scrape dishes. with the right approach my dishwasher performance has been stellar. The user manual also includes proper tuning to local water hardness levels.

Poor dishwashing also discourages people from cooking at home, which leads to less healthful diets. So it's an important thing to get right.

Dishwashing is fascinating.

metabagel• 9 months ago

Perhaps there is an indentation on the outside of the detergent dispenser where you are meant to pour a bit of detergent for the pre-wash.

Like in the video: https://youtu.be/DAX2_mPr9W8?si=Njn749InqNCbjhQd&t=822

Scaevolus• 9 months ago

Find a PDF manual for your dishwasher. It generally will describe if it has a prewash.

totallymike4• 9 months ago

What your manual says is common to most dishwashers.

You can tell if your dishwasher has a pre-wash cycle if it does a short run, then you hear it draining, and then it does a longer full run. I expect it probably does.

Also, you can always add a bit of detergent to the main compartment of the dishwasher for prewash. The normal detergent compartment has a lid so the the detergent stays dry until the main wash cycle, and most prewash compartments are just an open tray.

Come to think of it, if there is a latching door on the detergent tray, your dishwasher definitely has a prewash cycle, or else they’d skip the door entirely

badc0ffee2• 9 months ago

I have a Miele dishwasher. Not only is there no place to put prewash powder, but I can hear the little door for the detergent pop open like 2 minutes into the cycle when on the default program.

This dishwasher also came with a box of Miele pods (and they encourage you to buy more). I think it's designed first and foremost to not use powder.

kxrm• 9 months ago

I have a Bosch as well, i sprinkle a bit of powder on the door. It has a pre-wash run which goes quick.

The manual is likely referring to not hand rinsing dishes before loading them which was very common 30 or 40 years ago. I had to train my Mother to stop doing that.

Johnny5553• 9 months ago

The owners manual for my Bosch 500 says prewash detergent is not necessary. But it does have a prewash cycle as I can hear it draining before the main wash.

Note: This dishwasher provides the optimum cleaning performance without the use of a prewash detergent and further enhances our standards of sustainability and efficiency.

brewdad5• 9 months ago

I keep my Bosch set to Auto and Extra Dry and use Kirkland pods. Rarely do I have anything that comes out less than perfect.

The Extra Dry setting seems to help with getting the glass and ceramics dryer. Plastics still come out quite wet since it uses a hotter final rinse rather than a heating element to get dishes “dryer”.

inferiorhuman9• 9 months ago

I have a previous generation Bosch 500 series dishwasher. For my use case I get the best results with the heavy cycle. However I found that adding loose detergent in there for the "prewash" resulted in soapy residue being left on the dishes if used in conjunction with the heavy cycle (but not with the normal and auto cycles).

Alec's dishwasher videos are based on some rather primitive dishwashers. For instance he talks about his test unit not flushing out the spray arms, but Bosch/Siemens filters the water going to the spray arms so it wouldn't recirculate dirty water anyways. Same deal with the prewash. Bosch uses a turbidity sensor to determine how many "prewash" cycles to run and when to reuse the water, something his test unit very clearly does not.

red-iron-pine4• 9 months ago

He has a lot of dishwasher videos for some reason!

have you watched his videos? dude is on the spectrum.

to be clear, he makes good vids. but his fascinations exist for a reason.

beAbU• 9 months ago

He has a lot of dishwasher videos for some reason!

He is known as Angry Dishwasher Man for a reason.

abracadaniel• 9 months ago

If the detergent container has a door, then that means the soap is dispensed later, which means there is a pre-wash stage it’s trying not to waste the detergent on.

woodpanel3• 9 months ago

I've micro-optimized my dishwasher setup to have all my 100+ pods and other in-bulk dishwashing-chemicals stored in a compartment between my two dishwashers.

I'm also firmly in the camp of having a flat cutlery compartment at the top and not that inefficient, and uncivilized, scarring, basket in bottom section.

Until seeing that video I thought I was crazy. I've found my master.

koolba• 9 months ago

You have two dishwashers in one kitchen?

matt-attack2• 9 months ago

I never understood the requirement for having to preheat your pipes. The dishwasher has access to a hotline, and a drain. Why wouldn’t it just run the hot water for 60 seconds to ensure it has maximum heat. This would just be a software feature, and cost nothing on their part.

It seems so arcane for the operator to have to do this before running a cycle

Telaneo• 9 months ago

There are regulations on water usage for dishwashers. That purge would eat into its water usage.

Yes, purging the cold water manually does exactly the same thing. We live in a flawed world.

RealityVoid• 9 months ago

I've found it harder and harder to find powder dishwasher detergent in my country. I think they intentionally pull them off the market, I used to buy a large Finish container and now I can barely find a place that sells _any_ sort of dishwashing powder.

NamTaf2• 9 months ago

I, too, went through like 18 months in the UK with the big stores not selling any until one reintroduced it recently. Alternatives on the internet were like 3+x the price, at least. It was incredibly frustrating. I now stock up and have 2-3 boxes of the stuff, in case it does vanish again.

Doubly frustrating since mine is a small, single-drawer dishwasher, so pods are even worse since I can't break them down. It leads to me having way too much detergent in the dishwasher and I end up with residue on the dishes.

gattilorenz• 9 months ago

Or… use a (dirty) knife to split a solid tab; put 2/3 in the dishwasher compartment and 1/3 just in the dishwasher.

bcraven• 9 months ago

The big Sainsbury's near me never stopped doing this:

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-conce...

And this has worked for me too:

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/essential-dishwasher-...

Yizahi4• 9 months ago

Yeah, in Poland two "premium"-ish brands stopped selling powder in favor of tablets, and the cheaper brand is often missing from shelves, I need to order it in delivery separately. Situation is funny, since salt and rinse liquid are still widely available along with supposedly 3-in-1 tablets :) . I guess they are not so 3-in-1 as the ads say. But I will continue buying powder for as long as it will be manufactured. It's cheaper and more efficient. Same with washing machine power.

selcuka5• 9 months ago

Tablets are fine. You can still break them and use half of it in the prewash dispenser.

Pods are a different story.

kiwijamo4• 9 months ago

Interesting, here in New Zealand every supermarket has at least one brand of powder. Normally Finish is one and competing brands includes locally made and/or eco-friendly ones. Hopefully that practice doesn't reach here!

ErroneousBosh4• 9 months ago

I wonder if that's why my now something like nearly 40-year-old dishwasher is so bad for leaking, on certain cycles? Maybe the pods foam up too much, because it seems hell of a foamy inside.

At some point, I'll maybe post up the pics of repairing the door hinges - previously it was leaking badly because the chunky metal hinges had cracked and bent, pushing the door up enough to not squash the bottom lip seal. Unobtainable parts now, but if you have a welder...

If you don't use a JTAG cable and a MIG welder on the same project in the same day, can you really call yourself "full stack"?

smileysteve• 9 months ago

At 40 years, there is an expectation that the rubber and most plastic components have become embrittled. The hinges likely only wore out after the spring had reduced function (and lack of lubrication)

After your weld, I hope you consider replacing all rubber with silicone, and add lubrication to at least an annual list.

tguvot26• 9 months ago

i replaced few years ago dishwasher that was at this point of time 20 years old (GE). When it was removed from below countertop plastic connector on top of dishwasher (water hookup) fall apart into dozen of small pieces.

ErroneousBosh4• 9 months ago

The plastic and rubber bits are absolutely fine.

The hinges broke because someone leaned on the door with their full weight while it was open. The grease on the hinge pins was perfectly okay too.

Ariston used to be a quality company.

ash_091• 9 months ago

MIG is for hobbyists. Real programmers use TIG.

ErroneousBosh4• 9 months ago

I haven't got space for a TIG. However a couple of weeks ago Hofer had an inverter gasless MIG about the size of a Commodore 64 power brick, not including the spool of wire. Can't say I wasn't tempted to get myself a hot-glue-gun-for-metal kind of tool.

NoPicklez• 9 months ago

Anecdotally we started using these dishwasher sheets and the dishwasher started erroring during the cycle and also leaked slightly. On observation when it errored it looked very foamy inside.

Simply changing back to powder completely stopped the error and the leaking and this was in a 1 year old dishwasher

basscomm• 9 months ago

Maybe the pods foam up too much, because it seems hell of a foamy inside.

Dishwasher detergent doesn't make suds. Dish soap does. Are you sure you're using the correct stuff? Or prewashing the dishes for some reason and not getting all the soap off?

analog312• 9 months ago

Anecdote: My spouse and I visited some friends for supper at their place. After the meal, was when they decided to try out the dishwasher in their apartment for the first time.

With dish liquid.

It's almost like the movies where the wash machine fills the house with suds, and the occupants go floating out the front door.

tguvot26• 9 months ago

i used multiple dishwashers in multiple countries. blomberg, ge, bosch, miele, lg. used pods for as long as they exist (with exception of miele that has detergent cartridge that is good for two dozens of cycles). the only times when I had problem with dishwasher performance it's when either dishwasher had physical malfunction, dishwasher arms were blocked by some object or when i forgot to put pod.

is my experience of dishwashers extraordinary ?

jogu2• 9 months ago

His stance is less that pods don't perform, and more that powders perform just as well and are less wasteful.

tguvot26• 9 months ago

pods are about convenience. exactly same reason that i got dishwasher with detergent cartridges and washing machine with build in container for detergent.

but if we talk about powders, they can be very different with different performance. There are commercial powders (for restaurants and such where dishwashers run on very short cycles) that I afraid to put in my dishwasher and there are eco powders that are made from unicorn tears (tried once, they cleaned dirt but leave stains on clear glass). i went through sds of a bunch of them. most of them have same similar basic ingredients, but in different proportions

eszed2• 9 months ago

I thought that the multi-solution pods - they're usually have differently-colored, for I presume marketing reasons - have pockets with different dissolve rates, so that the solutions are dispensed in sequence. I've not tested that, though.

jogu2• 9 months ago

He has another video talking about pods specifically:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

PetitPrince• 9 months ago

It would be probably very difficult to engineer a good dissolution rate that takes into account the different length and water temperature of the pre-wash cycle of the many many different dishwashers out there. So no, as the video in the sibling comment shows, it's just fancy marketing.

masklinn3• 9 months ago

Alec actually looked at that in a previous video of the dishwasher series. There is no "different dissolve rate" or "dispensed in sequence".

https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?t=718

jeffbee5• 9 months ago

One segment of this video quite clearly shows that the fancy pod does dispense its contents in stages.

eszed2• 9 months ago

Ha! They got me. Thank you.

ZeroGravitas• 9 months ago

I watched the video, but may have missed this, but shouldn't the testing have shown that the powder was substantially better?

Or did they not test the "putting some powder into the prewash" thing and so it was just "powder released all at once" vs "tablet released all at once".

Even there I'd expect some mild improvement from the powder mixing more easily than a plastic wrapped tablet (though maybe if the content inside is liquid this factor is reversed?).

Does this mean the big corps do have some chemical advantage that cancels out the crappy delivery mechanism?

Or does it mean that a mechanical spray prewash step isn't meaningfully improved by chemicals in most circumstances?

I was more alarmed by the wrappers being plastic. I had assumed they were some clever biodegradable thing but they're not.

mvdtnz2• 9 months ago

Given the stupid pods are way more expensive I think it's enough to show that there's no benefit.

smiley1437• 9 months ago

The pods cost about 6x as much per load as powder.

So, even if they had equal cleaning performance, economically the powder would come ahead.

As it turns out, the 1/6th-as-expensive powder does an even better job than the pods, making the powder an even more obvious choice

(Unless you really value the handling convenience of using a pod and were willing to accept poorer results at a higher expense)

pitaj• 9 months ago

No. The powder he's promoting in the video (which performs better than pods) actually costs more per wash than the most effective pods on the market (Cascade Platinum Plus).

nikita2206• 9 months ago

I believe expensive pods do have a chemical advantage, in the form of some enzymes that help break things down.

ixwt• 9 months ago

The powder in the video has enzymes as well.

orev3• 9 months ago

This is his (at least) third video on this. Your questions are answered in the earlier ones.

jeffbee5• 9 months ago

I was a long-time adherent of powder for all the reasons in the video. I used the Seventh Generation powder that is widely available, or once was. One day I couldn't find it, so I got Cascade Free & Clear Pods. I was completely blown away by how much better the pods work. And they work faster, too, because my dishwasher cycles are based on water clarity and they end sooner if the detergent is working faster. So I permanently switched, nevermind the cost difference.

Perhaps part of the issue is that the presenter in the video is using a somewhat primitive machine.

Izkata• 9 months ago

I used pods and tried out powder after one of his previous videos on this, it was pretty terrible even following his advice and using rinse aids.

I like chocolate milk, made by mixing chocolate powder (Nesquik) into milk, and somehow everything except pods manages to leave a film of the chocolate powder over everything. I haven't watched this video yet, but my suspicion is he's using bad pods - ones that really are just packaged detergent without the extra chemicals they often include in the pods nowadays.

orev3• 9 months ago

Because the pods are so much more expensive, it means they make more money on them. There’s a very real incentive for the companies to intentionally reduce the performance of the powders just so they can sell more pods (as people notice the performance difference, they think it’s because powder is naturally inferior instead of being manipulated into being so).

Blackthorn• 9 months ago

We attempted an experiment in our own dishwasher after the video, trying Cascade Platinum boxed powder (only stuff available here) and Cascade Platinum Plus pods (which we had been using before). The experiment showed that, for our dishwasher and our water, the pods just worked significantly better. The main difference was in the silverware (tiny bits would occasionally be left with the powder).

A couple of months into the experiment with the powder, the dishwasher started to smell a bit foul, which usually indicates time to clean the filters, which I did. But this happened vastly sooner than I was used to with the pods.

Even if the powder's performance sucks intentionally because Cascade made it worse now, as a sibling comment suggested, ultimately that's the only powder option still available here.

TiredOfLife4• 9 months ago

His tests found that a brand that makes both powder and pods makes the powder substantially worse.

Youden• 9 months ago

In the video he ran a similar test and had similar results. IIRC his conclusion was that the manufacturer is deliberately sabotaging the performance of powders in order to direct more sales to the higher margin pods.

It's also why he's endorsing a new powder product he was involved in developing: it performs as good or better than the pods.

jeffbee5• 9 months ago

I don't think the difference in my anecdote was due to sabotage. I think it was the difference between Hippie Bullshit® and Motherfucking Chemistry®

pavon• 9 months ago

Same here. Tried using just power, and his other advice and it didn't work out. Didn't clean as well and many dishes (especially plastic) ended up with a white film despite trying multiple brands of powder and dish dry solution.

I wonder if part of it is differences in water hardness and such.

jeffbee5• 9 months ago

I think water chemistry is under-appreciated, and a lot of people also seem to believe that the rinse agent does nothing, but it does.

platevoltage5• 9 months ago

One of my favorite YouTubers. Watch every video.

platevoltage5• 9 months ago

Anyone who downvoted care to tell me why? Am I watching trash?

apparent2• 9 months ago

Probably relevance. I wouldn't downvote for that unless it was the top comment or something.

conductr4• 9 months ago

I didn’t downvote but not a fan. Reason is Completely rude and subjective but I just can’t really stand his voice or how he speaks. Never seen him before today but oddly this video has found me through 2 different avenues today

emtel3• 9 months ago

Pods work great for me, and I love not having crumbs of powder under the sink, or a bottle of liquid detergent with encrusted drips down the side. It's just gross.

They are more expensive, but I buy them on sale at Costco for about $16/100, so at $0.16 per load I really don't care if powdered detergent is only $0.03 per load or whatever.

There is clearly a revealed preference for pods among consumers for these things, and "proving" that everyone is wrong for liking them is just not a very interesting exercise imo.

lurking_swe2• 9 months ago

if you have powder crumbs under your sink you might need to improve your technique.

This reminds me of how some of my house guests will accidentally splash water all over the bathroom counter and even the mirror when they wash up in the morning. I don’t say anything, to be polite, but they clearly lack technique lol.

This works for me:

0. store the dishwasher powder (box) under sink.

1. Open dishwasher door

2. grab box, place OVER the opened door.

3. dispense powder into cartridge in door (with spoon, tilting box, etc)

4. put spoon back in box OR fully tilt box back upright. “Crumbs” will drop onto the door, that’s OK.

5. move box back under sink.

Even if I was messy, I personally couldn’t make myself spend 5x on pods to avoid cleaning crumbs under the sink once a month. When i think of convenience i think of a dishwasher saving me hours every month. Not saving 10 seconds a month to wipe crumbs under the sink. :-)

We clearly all have different preferences and ideas of “convenience”. I respect that.

johnfn• 9 months ago

if you have powder crumbs under your sink you might need to improve your technique.

With a pod there is no technique to be improved. They just work, every single time.

tonymet9• 9 months ago

The issue of letting consumers choose the worse product is that the good products get pushed out of the market.

Grocery floorspace that was once primarily staples and whole foods is mostly now junkfood.

Proper razors have been replaced with disposables.

Skincare & toothpaste products contain sodium laureth sulfate , which lathers well, but causes mouth sores and skin irritation.

Letting consumers choose usually ends up optimizing superficial and sometimes harmful traits.

throwaway20373• 9 months ago

    > Skincare & toothpaste products contain sodium laureth sulfate , which lathers well, but causes mouth sores and skin irritation.

This is only true for sensitive individuals. Billions of people use these products every day and have no issues.

Groxx4• 9 months ago

giant, bright red, almost-flavorless strawberries

a_wild_dandan• 9 months ago

His specific thesis is that pods fundamentally clean worse than powder because they're inherently single-stage releases of detergent in machines designed for two-stage releases. Despite this, he still explicitly says that pods have their uses. So I'm unclear on how his goal is "proving that everyone is wrong." Did we watch different videos?

tguvot26• 9 months ago

Is there list of machines that designed for two stage releases?

Rebelgecko3• 9 months ago

I think the main advantage of pods is accessibility

barbazoo• 9 months ago

I used an old container with a 3" lid and a handle, and fill it regularly with the cheap dishwasher powder that I buy in bulk. I put a whole in the screw on lid so I can just pour out the powder. 98% clean and much much cheaper than any pods and much better for the environment because the packaging is all paper.

orev3• 9 months ago

With pods you can’t add some detergent to the prewash while adding the rest to the main wash cycle. That’s the thing that makes one of the biggest differences.

seattlematt• 9 months ago

Seems like a market opportunity for dual pod packets.

emtel3• 9 months ago

Yes but my dishes come out spotless with pods, so I don't need to change anything to make them cleaner.

selcuka5• 9 months ago

You can still add powder to the prewash dispenser.

apsurd• 9 months ago

I'm 1.5 minutes in and I already learned to purge cold water from the pipes before running the dishwasher. Assuming this is evidence based and true, I mean come on! Is it really so alarming to see someone deep dive hard and do the work to mass educate the public?

russdill4• 9 months ago

It seems like it would be trivial for the machine to pump water in, turn on the heating element, and wait until it reaches optimum temperature before beginning the cycle.

spondyl• 9 months ago

Hah! I had watched this just last night. I have a Fisher & Paykel Dishdrawer so this prompted me to check the instruction manual and sure enough, I had been putting Rinse Aid in the pre-wash area. I don't even really know what Rinse Aid is honestly but it's fun having some things be a black box. Turns out the correct spot is turning a knob, pulling it out and pouring it down a hole containing a glowing red light. I had assumed there was just some sort of circuitry down there and doing so would be a horrible idea. Thanks Technology Connections!

analog312• 9 months ago

It's a volatile surfactant. Thus, it allows water to drip off your dishes before drying, so you don't get spots, but also doesn't produce a residue of its own.

hammock2• 9 months ago

I wouldn’t use rinse aid. It’s not good for you - damages your gut and may contain dioxane byproducts. I also would avoid detergents with ethoxylated alcohols (AEs).

What to look for is any powder or powder-filled pod with a) no AEs and b) does contain amylase and protease , two food-eating enzymes that are often omitted for who knows why.

365 Whole Foods brand pods are my go-to

HumanOstrich4• 9 months ago

[Several citations needed]

potsandpans• 9 months ago

The guy in the video disagrees with you. From his other video, 23 mins in,

next, rinse aids. use them. this isn't a scam.

I'll trust the dishwasher expert until there's some proper citations.

You have to realize that every time you sip a glass or eat off a surface that's provided by a commercial entity, you're getting items that have come in contact with industrial appliances that dispense rinse aid.

I have a difficult time believing that something so ubiquitous is as harmful as you claim, but I'm open to being convinced.

bilsbie• 9 months ago

Do they make a powder?

dundercoder2• 9 months ago

We absolutely need rinse aid here, even with a water softener. But we make our own with ethanol and citric acid. For us works just as well as the pricey stuff and costs us…. A large bottom shelf bottle of vodka (sorry, don’t drink and don’t buy this enough to remember) and about $0.50 in citric acid will last me 6 months.

oarfish• 9 months ago

damages your gut

what does that even mean?

Any citations here?

Edit: i see the linked pubmed in a child comment now. But it seems to be not in humans, so saying it "damages your gut" is not an appropriate conclusion.

Arch-TK2• 9 months ago

There are rinse aid brands which undergo independent tests to ensure they don't contain problematic things but you can also pretty successfuly make your own with a combination of some food grade acid, alcohol and water.

theLiminator• 9 months ago

Do you know of any dishwasher powder (not pod) that's both effective and less likely to cause gut issues?

CupricTea• 9 months ago

Not only is there an extremely small amount of rinse aid that is dispensed in the final rinse, but even less of it would be present once the dishes are dry. The paranoia over it theoretically affecting your gut lining in the amounts used as directed is hogwash.

Without rinse aid your dishes will never be even remotely dry unless you manually wipe them dry yourself.

FredPret2• 9 months ago

I applaud this man's commitment to dishwashers.

But you can buy a large box of generic and very cheap no-bullshit pods at Costco, and simply put two or even three of them in a load.

If you're going the multi-pod route, you can put one in the dispenser and one or more right in with the dishes.

tonymet9• 9 months ago

even the cheap costco pods are 3x the cost of powder. And his point is that the pods undermine the dishwasher because they don't let you control when and how much detergent is deployed during the multiple washing cycles.

powder deploys during rinse and wash. pods deploy only during wash (or only rinse if people put the pods into the tray, which is common)

And the dishwashers are designed with a hardness index in the hopper . you're supposed to line up the soap with your local hardness level to avoid residue.

FredPret2• 9 months ago

But the multi-pod strategy means you can give the machine soap to use in various cycles. Put some in the little flap, and some just in with the dishes.

I'm not sure if my machine even has a hardness marking, but when I used liquid dishwasher soap, I simply filled up the compartment every time.

As to the cost, yes it's 3X, but if you're reading this and you have a Costco membership, it's still a rounding error.

Pods just make life simpler and cleaner (no messy powders and gunky liquids in the soap cabinet), which is why I even have a dishwasher in the first place.

jgtrosh• 9 months ago

His crusade is in part about how pods are overdosed which can reduce their effectiveness (and be super wasteful)

macinjosh2• 9 months ago

Having the cleanest dishes is not always the optimization one is looking for.

I like pods because there is less of a chance my clumsy self, or younger kids can accidentally spill costly soap for my dog to try to lick up or overfill the dispenser. My dishes are almost never caked in fats and oils when I put them in. I do not use a pre-wash. If I do I break a pod in half and toss in the bottom.

This guy makes me roll my eyes. There is nothing more exhausting than a self-assured YouTuber lecturing others as if he has all the right answers. He is not wrong per se but not everyone has their own preferences and needs.

RandomBacon2• 9 months ago

chance

There's always chances with everything in life.

Perhaps teach/practice with your kids to be less clumsy - that will pay a lot more dividends than just using pods.

macinjosh2• 9 months ago

Spoken like someone who has never been around kids.

pcunite• 9 months ago

Wow, this will be helpful.

CWuestefeld• 9 months ago

One surprising thing I got from this is that the "Energy Saver" mode used just as much energy, and even more water.

But he said that almost as a throwaway, with almost no explanation of his methodology in determining this, nor discussion about how common this problem might be.

brikym• 9 months ago

Maybe it means energy as in human effort.

Bratmon• 9 months ago

He made a follow-up video in which he explains his testing methodology and what the dishwasher is doing in heavy detail:

https://youtu.be/WnBb3DLlVPwsi=1fW2qg8_Y1SmxkKo

Tl;dr He actually tested each cycle, timed what it did, and measured the energy with a Kill a Watt. He also found the repair manual, which included a diagram of each cycle that matched his tests.

His ultimate finding was that all of the cycles and modifiers did wildly different things, none of which correlated in any way to their name.

tgv• 9 months ago

My dishwasher came with a booklet that showed energy and water consumption for each setting. Eco mode is about 20% - 50% more efficient in comparison to the other programs.

dprice1• 9 months ago

I have been using Dirty Labs dishwasher powder for about a year, since we got a new dishwasher, and inspired by some of his older videos on this topic. The performance has been good, no complaints. I don't torture-test my dishwasher like Alec does :). With the powder, I can do the whole some-on-the-door, some-in-the-dispenser thing mentioned here, or just use less for light loads. It is without a doubt not a budget option.

One aspect I like about it is that they have a fragrance-free variant, and even the "fragrance" one is not too bad. A second aspect I like is that it's biodegradable, et cetera. So a bit lighter on the environment, I hope, and the SDS is prominently available on the website.

I think another thing which is under-appreciated is that you need to know how to do the basic cleaning chores for your dishwasher-- for example if it has a filter, learn to clean it! Otherwise its ability to clean will probably be compromised.

arjie2• 9 months ago

I love that there are people who will go into this much detail on stuff. It's really cool that they do. But the whole thing is that if you follow some sequence of steps, powder will clean as well as or better than pods for a third the cost. All right, this isn't a significant portion of my expenses so I'll pay the 3x cost since my dishes come out clean anyway.

I wish the description of the video was like an abstract.

bitslayer• 9 months ago

I wish the description of the video was like an abstract.

Business opportunity something something AI

small_scombrus• 9 months ago

YouTube are already doing it! :(

redundantly• 9 months ago

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.

kurttheviking• 9 months ago

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...

yumraj• 9 months ago

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.

bombcar• 9 months ago

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 ...

Mistletoe• 9 months ago

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

jkern• 9 months ago

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.

jonathanlydall4• 9 months ago

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.

altairprime• 9 months ago

While I’m sure dismissing the video is easy for someone with a dishwasher that already works fine with pods, having worked through all four(?) of those dishwasher videos, I have finally made an enzymatic powder work after months of effort when pods did not help.

Heavy Duty + Hot Wash doesn’t usually work. Doesn’t finish washing.

Heavy Duty + Sani Rinse doesn’t usually work. Weird residue issues for entire top rack.

Heavy Duty + Hot + Sani doesn’t work. Both of the above issues at once!

But, as it turns out —

Normal + Hot + Sani does work, perfectly, repeatedly.

The takeaway from the latest video for me is that the options aren’t Boolean on/off flags for different cycle-specific parameters, the cheap U.S. rental dishwasher comprehensively alters the entire program based on which total set of options are selected in non-intuitive ways.

So I have to use Normal not Heavy, Hot Wash and Sani-Rinse, or my wash cycle doesn’t wash properly. Which is absurd and obnoxious, but TIL, and suddenly I’ve had two consecutive loads of dishes come out clean for the first time in a year of trying.

No, the pods didn’t work either, as it turns out my dishwasher doesn’t reach the “enzymatic cleaning” temperatures off my rental’s barely-120F water using Hot Wash alone. No, the filter isn’t dirty. Yes, it drains fine. Yes, I’ve run cleaning cycles with several cleaning powders. Yes, run the tap to hot. Etc etc.

TLDR for the entire video: If your dishwasher isn’t cleaning fully, even if you use maximum powder or pods or cleaning it, make sure you’ve tried counterintuitive combinations with Light/Normal instead of Heavy, or Sani Rinse to improve the wash cycle, etc. Ruling out unlikely combos because they seem illogical may prevent you from finding a working set. (And if you’re using a powder formulated by anyone who sells colorful dishwasher pods, it’s probably designed to be less effective than the powder in their pods.)

slackpad• 9 months ago

It's interesting - YouTube does show AI summaries now - here's the one for this video:

This video explores dishwasher detergent, focusing on a new powder formulation. The creator details the science behind effective dishwashing, including pre-wash cycles and water temperature. Independent testing results comparing the new powder to leading pods are revealed.

I've noticed that they all seem to not give away too much so you still have to watch the video to get the conclusion. It makes sense why they do this for creators, but I do agree it would be awesome to just read the conclusion on many of these.

foxglacier• 9 months ago

Videos are for fun. Nobody needs to know the conclusion in isolation. If you wanted a stream of boring facts, there could be a service for that, which nobody would use.

vasco3• 9 months ago

I've noticed that they all seem to not give away too much so you still have to watch the video to get the conclusion. It makes sense why they do this for creators

Oh summer child, they do that because they'd serve less ads.

mitthrowaway22• 9 months ago

There's more to the video than just that. For example: you should run your hot water tap before turning on your dishwasher, and you should experiment with the dishwasher settings, because they can make a big difference.

bakje2• 9 months ago

Running the hot water tap beforehand assumes that the dishwasher is hooked up to the hot water in the first place, which isn’t common everywhere.

Where I live this feature is called hot fill, I believe, and a lot of dishwashers don’t even support it. For those that do support its still generally not recommended to use it since the dishwasher now can’t do any rinsing with cold water, which is not only wasteful but I’ve heard the hot water can damage the water softener in your dishwasher.

But if you do hook it up to hot water (which is a lot more common in the US, I think) this makes a lot of sense.

brewdad5• 9 months ago

I think one of his earlier videos suggested doing what I have always done. Load the dishwasher then do the hand washing. This ensures you have hot water ready to go since you’ve already been actively using it. When hand washing is done, run the dishwasher.

vasco3• 9 months ago

The whole point of getting a dishwasher is to not think about any of this though, for me.

magicalhippo• 9 months ago

But the whole thing is that if you follow some sequence of steps, powder will clean as well as or better than pods for a third the cost.

YMMV. Based on the earlier videos, I did switch back to powder, and I did follow the steps of putting some powder in the main compartment for the pre-wash. And i did try several powders.

Yet, none of the powders were anywhere near as good as the tablet we use.

It also doesn't contain any nasty chemicals, unlike several of the powders[1].

So we went back to our tablets. It might cost slightly more, but hardly a significant expense by any stretch.

Now, there might be some powders that work better which aren't available here in Norway. But I gotta work with what I got.

[1] https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/test-av-oppvaskmidd...

adamors• 9 months ago

He demonstrates this in the video as well. Powder/tablet from the same company performed differently, the powder seems to be deliberately underpowered.

graemep2• 9 months ago

Powders should perform better for the reasons explained - that was the reason he prefers powder, not the cost. The problem is that the powder in the pods is better than the loose powder.

The solution might be to put powder in the pre-wash tray and a pod in the dispenser. Or you could cut the pods and split the powder between the prewash and the dispenser.

WorldMaker2• 9 months ago

It also doesn't contain any nasty chemicals, unlike several of the powders

At least in the US my experience has been the reverse of that. Several of the companies seem to have used the pods as an excuse to increase the number of chemicals that require chemical burn labels on the packaging and switch "Best By" dates to very literal "Use By" dates. With those pods, there's a thin water-soluble plastic that is also prone to melting at the posted expiration dates as all that is between you and second or third degree chemical burns.

No thanks. I worked food service in High School and had more than enough Chemistry classes in college to have too much healthy respect for chemical burn notices to trust any of the pods at this point. (Especially as someone who lives alone and will almost never use an entire package of pods before "Use By" dates.)

I haven't tried powders, but I did go back to liquid detergents even though there's only about one option left on store shelves where I shop which have now devoted so much space to the wasteful plastic tubs of the pods.

hebelehubele2• 9 months ago

For long videos, I have a script that fetches the transcript using yt-dlp and pipes it to an LLM for keypoints. If the content sounds interesting, I watch it; if not, I save 45 minutes.

floppyd• 9 months ago

I did something similar a while back, but I treat it as "text thumbnails" and kind of replace YT frontpage with this. I don't use it all the time, but sometimes the clickbait is too much.

Also I should add Gemini (the app) is able to access YT transcripts most of the time, so sometimes I'd just paste the link and ask for a tldr. One of the few reasons to go for Gemini app, not google ai studio.

That said, Technology Connections is worth watching just because videos are very pleasant, it's probably my favorite YT subscription right now.

yomismoaqui• 9 months ago

I did something similar but as a Chrome extension using Gemini 2.5 Flash (or Flash Lite) for summarizing.

On the page it shows an extra TLDR button near the like button.

You can change the prompt to modify how the summary looks and has an optional mode with links to specific timestamps.

dvfjsdhgfv2• 9 months ago

Mind sharing the script? It's becoming a big problem to me: people send me links to "must watch videos" but neither the title nor description nor subchapter titles tell me what it actually is about.

In this particular case, it's spending 40 minutes of my life on something that could be explained in 4 sentences.

iso1631• 9 months ago

I can always rely on technology connections videos to be interesting to me, so no need to do any of that.

hasbot• 9 months ago

YouTube included a summary:

"This video explores dishwasher detergent, focusing on a new powder formulation. The creator details the science behind effective dishwashing, including pre-wash cycles and water temperature. Independent testing results comparing the new powder to leading pods are revealed."

red-iron-pine4• 9 months ago

sweet jesus share that script.

there are a lot of YT vids that can be summed up essentially in 2 sentences and I don't need to see 4 ads first.

YT's actual AI summary is useless, arguably net negative

jancsika• 9 months ago

All right, this isn't a significant portion of my expenses so I'll pay the 3x cost since my dishes come out clean anyway.

It's good to know there's another HN poster out there like me who doesn't mind using Electron.

arjie2• 9 months ago

Oh I love Electron. The day of the Linux desktop arrived and no one noticed because there's no difference in platform anymore! All apps are available everywhere and the functionality is equivalent. This is so much of a difference from my childhood. This is definitely an example of increased computing power enabling new use cases (full cross-platform support) at lower cost.

kjkjadksj3• 9 months ago

I much prefer the powders. They clean as well as the pods. You actually are supposed to do these steps with the pods too like running the sink to hot. If you don’t, at least with my washer, you are left with undissolved pod carcass somewhere in the wash.

The worst thing by far about the pods though is the smell. I don’t know why anyone would want to eat off a fragranced dish but that is the vast majority of the market I guess.

In terms of powder I use seventh generation fragrance free and I have no issues with it.

solsane• 9 months ago

I find that the pods are less effective, even without following those steps. (Disclaimer: I use gel)

codethief• 9 months ago

I remember watching this[0] video by the OP a couple years ago. Never would have thought I could listen to someone talk about dishwashers for 30 minutes but it was surprisingly fascinating!

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

billfor2• 9 months ago

I went to my Costco right before they banned phosphates in the dishwashing detergent and got a pallet of Cascade with 5% phosphates. People looked at me like I was was crazy. I'm still going through my pallet 15 years later and my dishes are always clean :-) I just throw a bit of the detergent in the tub for prewash rather than put it in the cup, as it will leak out anyway. One thing you could probably do for the phosphate-free stuff is to add a "teaspoon of TSP" to the detergent and that would probably help - not sure if the formulation in today's detergent would agree with it though. I'll find out in another 5 years I guess....

zeroonetwothree2• 9 months ago

So we have you to blame for coral reefs dying

billfor2• 9 months ago

Probably not I have a septic system.

Yizahi4• 9 months ago

Coral reefs are dying because of the water temperature increase coupled with increased acidity. And that happens not because someone uses a dishwasher detergent, they are likely not even in the same hemisphere. But because none of the governments are implementing any working green tech at scale, so the emissions are only ever increasing and the rates of increase is accelerating. Paper straws and bad detergent won't help when new coal and gas plants are constructed daily.

nubinetwork• 9 months ago

Strange that nobody seems to notice the video was one big ad for a soap company.

hekkle• 9 months ago

I started using powder about a year ago, because of this guy. It legitimately works so much better than pods, because of the bit you 'spill' into the pre-wash part; and it's cheaper!

abakker• 9 months ago

My only addition to this discussion is that the Dirty Labs dish soap has been legitimately better for our baby stuff and other plastic stuff that sometimes gets oily. I recommend it.

kumarvvr• 9 months ago

I wonder if its possible to press powder into pods, and use them. I mean, pre-make a bunch of them from store brand powder, and keep them ready for use.

Not sure if water can be introduced to bind the press, or maybe some other material.

Krastan• 9 months ago

At the end of the video he mentions that the good store sells those as well. https://good.store/products/dishwasher-tablets?srsltid=AfmBO...

cr125rider• 9 months ago

Not to just bandwagon on Alec but he is the epitome of a hacker. He is always tearing things down and explaining how they work. An absolute gem.

roguebloodrage• 9 months ago

Who the hell has a dishwasher connected to hot water? Shit, my washing machine doesn't even have hot water. Both devices have internal heaters. Both are over 10 years old.

This guy has been incorrect in his yt posts so many times, I simply do not believe him anymore.

He is all about monetization and doesn't care about truth or accuracy.

zamalek• 9 months ago

I inferred a trick from his original video. Dish soap and dishwasher detergent are not the same; the latter contains an enzyme that breaks food down. If you have something that is completely wrecked, fill it with piping hot water and put a dose of dishwasher detergent in it. Leave it overnight.

I strongly doubt the stuff is good for your skin, so I've only done this a few times.

iamacyborg• 9 months ago

Depending on what thing you’re talking about, often the easiest way to clean various pans is to just fill them with water and bring them to a boil for a few minutes

UnserMannInK3• 9 months ago

This works for cleaning a lot of things. I regularly clean the coffee maker (a Bialetti espresso thing) by putting some powder detergent in the water compartment, then „make coffee“ without actual coffee and leave it in overnight. Neutralize with white vinegar (which has the added benefit of descaling) and rinse thoroughly. It‘s as new afterwards.

And yes, it’s not good for your skin, so avoid immersing your hands in it or wear gloves.

bjackman2• 9 months ago

I don't think boiling water with dishwasher detergent in it is a great idea (because of potential fumes). I might have misunderstood what you mean by "make coffee" but maybe something to look into if you do this regularly.

shiandow• 9 months ago

That seems a bit excessive, especially since the water compartment should typically only come into contact with water.

The most critical part is the part you put the coffee in, which you can just put in the dishwasher every so often. Soaking the top compartment might make sense, you could use a dishwasher but I'd worry about the rubber seal.

jillesvangurp• 9 months ago

Referring to yourself in a title twice strikes me as mildly narcissistic and otherwise it's obvious click bait. Doesn't put me in a mood to watch the video. But judging from just the title this person seems to have figured out a few obvious things that are probably well known and entirely unsurprising for people that know anything about the virtues of soda in household applications. That's not exactly a well kept secret.

rendall• 9 months ago

Technology Connections is not a narcissist or arrogant. He's just a big geek about devices, and a bit of a comedian. Don't take it so seriously.

MarioMan2• 9 months ago

A few things that stood out to me:

- One of the key factors in powder over pods in his prior videos was cost. Cheap powder runs about 6.6¢/oz. The brand he’s promoting is $1.11/oz, nearly 17x more expensive than traditional powder. When comparing per-load costs, Cascade pods are about 39.5¢ per load and the promoted powder is 58.5¢ per load, or 48% more costly than pods. The price to performance is terrible and could only be justified if you also consider external factors like their sustainability practices and the donation of all profits to coral reef restoration. Not discussing price seems like a huge gap to me.

- I was disappointed that he only personally compared and tested washing performance against a pod and the promoted powder, rather than also evaluating a traditional powder. Could he have replicated and compared the subpar performance reported by others?

- I would have assumed that, if the pre-rinse is supposed to get hot, the heater would run until it reaches the temperature target. Is it normal for a unit to simply not care? Last I had done reading on this, whether to attach to the hot or cold side is actually a contentious issue, mostly around the gas vs. induction-based heating costs in water heaters, in addition to temperature losses in the pipes. If the pre-wash expects hot water, then that’s an extra point for the hot side backers. I guess one should always check their manual to determine best-practice on the purge and line placement.

douglee650• 9 months ago

It’s a well made, elaborate infomercial with a science hook.

tobyhinloopen• 9 months ago

The price was also an immediate turn-off for me, and I really don't like he's advertising it. It feels like a product that is marked up crazy amounts, greenwashed with "profits get donated" (profits AFTER the people involved get their salaries, obviously).

It feels like his channel suddenly changed to go into "let's make some money", carefully packaged in a "non-profit / charity" deal.

Maybe I'm just overly pessimistic.

Arch-TK2• 9 months ago

A 2.8x price increase (compared to what I pay per tablet) for a product made and packaged in the US compared to a mass manufactured product made in a cheaper country by companies with thousands of other products and massive marketing departments seems completely normal.

The thing about Hank Green is that he has been doing this sort of stuff (good things) for long enough time that I don't have trouble believing that this stuff a: pays fair and not over inflated salaries, and b: all the profits really do go to charitable causes.

I also don't think Alec is getting paid per sale, maybe he got some kickback for the consultancy, no idea. He would be obligates to disclose if he was getting a kickback, so I guess well see. If he is lying about such an affiliation, these things have a good chance of bubbling up especially for a channel the size of his.

conductr4• 9 months ago

This just leaves me wondering if I’m the only one manually wiping off the dishes before they go in the washer? I’ve never had a dirty dish issue and pods work just fine, the powder works just fine, etc. pods are just a little more convenient so I use them. Also, if you rinse your dishes first there’s no large food going into the washer and I’ve already got the warm water primed.

dyauspitr• 9 months ago

That beats the point of the dishwasher for me. I don’t really want to do any pre rinsing or scrubbing/wiping. If I’m doing that, I might as well just use a sponge with soap for an extra five seconds and wash the dish completely.

jonathanlydall4• 9 months ago

If the dish has bits of e.g. vegetable matter beyond a certain size which would ultimately need to be manually cleaned out the dish washer's filter after some time, then I will at least scrape off the contents of the plate first, and occasionally I may do a 2 second rinse of a plate under my tap.

asacrowflies• 9 months ago

The entire previous context of this guy's videos is why that is actually bad from a water use aspect and defeats the main benefits of using a dishwasher.

cameldrv• 9 months ago

Unfortunate that he's advertising an expensive powder...

That said, based on his advice in a previous video, now I run the hot water tap until it's hot. I put a pod in the dispenser, and I sprinkle some powder into the dishwasher. My issues with the dishwasher getting the dishes clean went away.

mathiasrw• 9 months ago

Just use sheets. Like powder, but without inhaling the dust/smell and the slight mess. I like the ones from Lucent Globe.

rapish62• 9 months ago

thats amazing!

quchao• 9 months ago

yes，i think so～

Tan-Aki• 9 months ago

Tldr?

temperceve• 9 months ago

I love this guy

exceptione• 9 months ago

Pro-tip for those who use pods: remove the plastic foil of the pod just before inserting.

That way you prevent polluting drink water with microplastics.

arthurfirst• 9 months ago

Repair men will tell you liquid detergents of any kind wear out dishwashers and washing machines much faster. To say nothing of all the stabilizers/additives and dyes. The best thing to clean with is powder to make your machine last. Also shipping water (liquids mostly water including pods) is a bad idea in terms of weight and cost. Liquids and pods are great for driving new unit sales. Tablet seem to be in the middle but they of course caking agents use to make them into pucks... why not just use powder?

Yeul• 9 months ago

Pods are easy to use which is why they were invented. In fact my washing machine doesn't even have a tray to put powder in anymore.

whatevaa3• 9 months ago

Powder not available in my country. It is gel or tablets/pods. Liquid wearing out machines sounds like bullshit.

_spduchamp• 9 months ago

The big ah-ha! moment is finding a hidden service spec sheet hidden inside the door control panel. That sheet reveals a lot of useful information that should just be in the owner's manual.

haritha-j2• 9 months ago

I do not own a dishwasher. I watched the full video. If i wanted practical dishwasher tips I wouldn't be watching a technology connections video. I also don't own a a1950s toaster, nor a 70s pinball machine. The point of these videos is entertainment and learning odd bits of knowledge.

pbnjeh• 9 months ago

His prior dishwasher videos rescued my parents' 30-ish year old dishwasher -- one they had previously been advised to avoid replacing as long as possible, as modern units don't have the same construction quality.

Following his cleaning instructions and, subsequently, his usage advice, did the trick.

Regarding the latter, notably adding the recommended prewash dose of detergent in addition to the main dose, and running the kitchen sink's hot tap until the water is fully hot before starting the dishwasher. Here in the US with our lower power capacity, resulting in dishwasher heating elements being restricted to lower power to avoid circuit breaker trips, when the dishwasher is correctly connected to the hot water line (typically, of the kitchen sink), doing this results in a hotter prewash and often also wash.

This all really does make a substantial difference.

Take the time to watch his dishwasher videos. If you struggle at all with the performance of yours, you won't regret doing so.

kjkjadksj3• 9 months ago

My dishwasher says to do those things in the user manual. It even has a little indented dish for prewash powder on top of the main soap door. It also says to regularly clean the filter which makes a big difference preventing any of those “specs” from ending up in the bottom of cups.

MarkusWandel• 9 months ago

I guess I'm just a dishwasher neophyte. My old one was crude, loud, dried hot, and got the job done (to hot, dry dishes) in one hour. Rinse aid wasn't even a word in our household (we don't have hard water here - no water spots). But don't put in a rice cooker pot with rice residue in it - it'll be baked on so hard that you need a 1h soak to get it off.

The new one (Bosch 500 series) takes three hours on its default "auto" cycle. No prerunning the tap to get hot water for the first fill, no worries about rice cooker pots. It runs for so long (quietly!) that everything gets soaked properly and comes off, sparking clean, no problem. Both the consumable (brands) that came with the machine as samples - the tablets and the rinse aid - are stocked in large packages at Costco at a per-wash cost that's negligible. I do put in rinse aid because drying is a weakness in this machine compared to the old one. That, and you can't run two loads in the same evening after a party. Prewash? Who cares, the dishes come out clean.

And that's kind of the whole point isn't it? Not to have to geek out with your dishwasher. Just fill it, get it started and expect to have clean dishes in the morning.

EnPissant• 9 months ago

This guy just follows the time tested pattern of "I'll let you in on a little secret!". Pods are the best way to clean dishes because they are capable of containing chemicals that are not practical to formulate into a uniform powder or liquid. All actual science confirms this.

nrlucas• 9 months ago

I would really like this content to be an essay, not a story. Or I should say, the narrative feels like an essay but it turns out not to be.

Namely, (spoiler) he finds some schematics in the door that would have informed his analysis prior. The fact he didn't just say, "hey you might have this in your door and could be helpful,..." And then proceed to do the analysis with the full information provided from the data.

Secondly, the purging test only compares hot water and "cold" water, and doesn't actually test the duration to get hot water to temperature. That is, is the 25s it takes to get up to temp matter? From the timings in the video it does, but it just felt like he was comparing purging and not, instead of hot water vs cold water.

Thirdly, hows do these advice change for newer models? Surely the dishwasher companies know some of this and can make things better.

I will be taking some of this practices to my dishwasher, but it is a newer Bosch model, and I would imagine I need to do some research to understand what is applicable to my dishwasher.

jiehong• 9 months ago

Reminds me of a question I had when working in a restaurant: what’s the difference between home dishwashers and restaurant dishwashers?

I mean, how come restaurants dishwashers wash things under 5 minutes? (Albeit with a lot of noise and with stronger water jets).

I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

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