I was online the other day looking for a new toaster and stumbled across the Washing Machine section. Did you know, you can get a washing machine that doses the detergent for you? I didn’t. I’ve been doing laundry for decades, and I can honestly say that pouring something into a drawer or chucking a pod thing into the machine has ever been the difficult bit.
Now if it could find the missing school trousers, empty the tissues out of the pockets and persuade whoever left a sock inside a sock to separate them, I’d be interested. I’d buy one of those.There’s useful work available here.
Instead, it’s taking over the pouring. Thank goodness. I was nearly at breaking point with that.
I thought washing machines were already a fairly impressive invention. Put dirty clothes in, add detergent, press a few buttons and go off to do something else while a machine deals with the washing. Compared with hauling everything through a mangle, we’d made considerable progress or so I thought.
Somewhere along the way, this stopped being enough. Now there are apps, smart features and washing machines that want to connect to the Wi-Fi. I’m beginning to wonder whether I’m looking at a domestic appliance or recruiting someone for an office job. What does it need the internet for? The washing’s there, in the drum. We’ve established contact.
I can see the appeal of knowing when a load has finished if your machine is somewhere you can’t hear it. Or even having a timer start option for those organised enough to know that they will deal with the wet washing when they get home. That said, knowing the washing has finished and actually doing something about it are two very different things in my book. A notification can tell me there’s a wet duvet cover waiting. It can’t make me enthusiastic about wrestling it outside and onto the line.
That remains my department.
The automatic detergent dosing is the bit that particularly puzzles me. Yes, I can understand that measuring it for each load might prevent waste. Some people will find it useful, and anything that makes an awkward task easier to manage has its place. I get it.
I’m just struggling with the idea that this was a pressing problem in enough people’s lives. Nobody has ever asked me how my day was and received the answer, “Terrible. Had to measure out the washing liquid again.”
There are plenty of other aspects of laundry I’d happily hand over. Working out whether something abandoned on a bedroom floor is dirty or merely being stored there, for example. Getting a straight answer to “Do you need this for tomorrow?” before ten o’clock at night would be another considerable breakthrough for anyone with teenagers.
Then there’s the control panel. I want enough choice to wash things properly without shrinking anyone’s trousers. I don’t particularly want to stand in front of the machine reading programme descriptions as though I’m choosing a university course.
Also, if I’m honest there’s always a point when I find a setting that works and use it for almost everything. The other options sit there for years, their possibilities unexplored. Perhaps I’m missing a life-changing trouser cleaning experience. So far, everyone seems reasonably clean to me.
When I eventually need another washing machine, I’d like one that washes well, is straightforward to use and lasts a decent length of time. A filter I can get at without flooding the floor would be lovely too. Controls I can understand before I’ve had my second cup of tea would also be appreciated. These are the things that would make laundry easier in this house. I suspect they’re harder to put in an exciting advert than a phone displaying a picture of your washing machine though.
Perhaps that’s how we’ve ended up here. There’s only so much excitement you can generate around a machine doing the job you bought it to do, so eventually someone has to give it connectivity and some new fangled ‘detergent dosing device.’
I’ll carry on pouring my own detergent for now. When they invent one that puts the clean washing away, they can have my attention.
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