American washers and info displayed on control panel

[spinspeed]

Has anyone ever noticed that in the US the new front load washers control panel seems to always have the spin speed listed as low medium high and the water as cold warm hot extra hot. In Europe and Australia the speed of spin is displayed eg 400rmp, 800rpm 1000rpm etc. And the temperature is displayed 30C, 40C, 60C 95C. Just wondering why this was. Perhaps a hang-over from TL washers which pretty much dominated the US market until resent times?

 

[appnut]

I think many people just don't care that much about laundry.  Faced with actual performance figures (rpms and temperature numbers), many would balk.  So many are conditioned to just wash in cold, cool, or warm.  There's also the government energy standard mandated.  As they've gotten stricter, the temps associated with "hot" and "warm" have decreased.  And those of us who are knolegeable are ho0rrified to what the actual temmps would be.  I'm thankful my Whirlpool Duet is old enough I can still set for reasonably predictable temperatures based upon research.   Personally, I'd be much happier with my ability to select spin speed and target temps.  But then I'm sure I'm in the minority in th4e overall scheme of the American public.   

 

[johnb300m]

I often wonder if it's our insanely litigious society here. And companies don't want to be held to ANY guarantees.
"Hey we told you WARM. It's warm to us."

 

[henene4]

We have had the exact same thing since the 90s. One of the first to just change temperature without mentioning appears to be Miele, actually, on their early Novotronic series. The 60C cotton cycle was only 50C for quite some time.

Then Eco cycles came along, then our consumer test magazin uncovered these lowered temps, then manuals mentioned lowered temps.

 

[logixx]

Yes, the difference between American and non-American manuals can be quite large. In not-America, Miele list cycle times, consumption values, water levels and agitation rhythms for their wash cycles - in the US: none of that.

 

[vacerator]

It may also

be a matter that Machines sold in the US are also sold in Canada, and Canada is on the metric system.
So in order for a display to read correctly in both it would need a conversion scale selector, chip and additional programming. That would add to the cost.
Some cars have this feature, but I've not seen it on any low end cars.
In the UK, some machines say "boil wash", or used to.
User guides do list the spin speeds, and water temp varies according to hot water heater settings within limits of the thermistor, and ground temps. from season to season, which make cold water colder or warmer.
Some machines have water heat boosters, low end ones don't.

 

[pierreandreply4]

my whirlpool generation 1 duet

right now i have a gen 1 duet washer thats 13 years old but the model itself do not have a water heater sinces its only a 3 temp wash rinse model hot/cold warm/cold and cold/cold and all cold rinse washer is on the left including a closeup of the control but pic might be a bit blurry

 

[iej]

It's a difference in consumer culture. European consumers prefer to have more technical information and there's a tendency in Europe to legislate towards requiring display of technically accurate information, no matter how unnecessary that might be.

Also European appliances historically had to deal with 30+ languages and tended to avoid using verbose explanations and instead used numbers and symbols.

This is changing a bit as digital interfaces mean you can switch languages but, there's still a preference for symbolic and scientific style information.

You've also got a strong dislike of machines with few cycle options in Europe. If you consider models like the Indesit Moon tried to push simplicity as selling point and dummed down the options. That machine mostly annoyed people.

I just think more of us are geeks and we like 30 programmes then only ever use Cotton 40°, unless we're washing wooly sweaters or have to deal with particularly disgusting houseguests' bed linen and feel like cranking up the temperature.

But Europeans seem to like having 4 different cycle for different types of stocks and being able to tweak them.

Miele in particular knows this and gives you endless options or special programmable tweaks involving holding down weird combinations of buttons and accessing hidden programming modes so you can change and customise all sorts of things.

It's the same with cars. We like lots of menus!!

Whereas I think US consumers don't generally want that level of interaction with a washing machine, so you get simple controls with just a few options.

 

[gusherb]

It honestly annoys me a lot when a machine doesn't have many options, or at least a way to manipulate it (like my TL SQ, it doesn't have a million options but I can manipulate it into doing anything I want without a fuss).
I would much prefer a machine to show the water temperature instead of "hot, warm cold" and the spin speed instead of "low, medium, high" etc etc. I think up until some time in the late 20th century more technical descriptions were the norm for anything involving tech/machinery here in the US, a shame it's not anymore.

Sometimes I think I live on the wrong continent and/or in the wrong time.