Former Apple Exec & engineer showing Combo Washer/Dryer at CES 2016

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appnut

appnut

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Glenn Reid taking an existing washer from a Chinese manufacturer and adding the mechanics necessary to turn it into a conventional dryer as well.  And it's supposed to be a vented one. 

 

See reviewed.com article

[this post was last edited: 1/2/2016-17:49]

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I think you could double both up. Water and waste water with Y-adapters, though the waste water adapter would be kind of new to me, and venting 2 units through 1 vent dosen't seem impossible either, given these hybrid units won't have the air-throughput of a normal dryer.

Electrical power is more interesting in my opinion. With a gas option, that won't be a problem, but with an electrical one, I'd think that they run into a problem.
The either make it 240V to get some decent wattage, but most setups only have 1 240V connection. They could make it only 2,5kW and then share a 240V outlet.

If they even considered the 2 machine idea.
 
Very interesting.

I sure hope this will force the other big manufactures to follow and do the same. 

 
 
LG is using a "Y" adapter setup for their Sidekick washer. I wonder if they need to have some sort of back-flow preventer in both lines to keep pumped water from entering the other machine? The pumps may already have a back-flow preventer built in.

Before I had softened water, I used a few of the Y splitters for the water supply lines and the aluminum/pot-metal versions would corrode and leak surprisingly quickly.

From their installation/users manual (Link .pdf):


gansky1-2016010309564909279_1.png
 
Oh, so cute...

They stuff Linux and a quad core into a washer? That's honestly going to either fail completly or take of. If they somehow manage to make it survive the vibrations, heat, moisture and lint.

I somehow feel that this actually has an Apple feeling to it. You know, lots and lots of new technology, new ideas, and so on. And on the way, the main idea got lost.
I mean, if you take Apple, our "Smartphones" are anything but phones.
This is anything but an applaince.

You see, first of: It has a 3,8 cuft drum. That's about 1,9 cuft of usable space during a wash&#92dry cycle. That's quite a bit smaller then what the market is used to and makes it a no-go for a lot of consumers.
It runs on 240V, which means you either abandon your additional dryer, or get a new 240V line. Or can't get it, at all.
It has a literal PC built into it. And if anybody ever used a PC over a period of time, we all know they have quirks. In an office condition. Not in a shaking, heating, water-connected condition.
They wrote a 6 page paper about condensing drxing being slower then venting. I mean, if you have to write a paper about that, you should not be in the laundry business.

My point is: Washer dryer combos have bern widely phased out due to their complexity, impractical layout and overall inefficency.
Now they take a already fault prone design due to its complex structure, and dump a whole lot of high tech into the mix, without changing anything meaningfull about the base pricipal.

To make this work, they'd need to get about 2,5-3 cuft of usable space into it, make it somehow actually replace 2 machines (aka make it possible to set up 2 of those side by side without changing your house around), and probably then worry about features.

For me, this get's a "Who wants to bet about when they will vanish?" rating.
 
I bet most people still don't fill their front loaders up full when they do a wash  1/2 to 2/3 full would probably be realistic.  User manual and other owner information needs to convey that requirement for proper operation. 
 
Still...

It is a smart looking machine, based on the brochure.
And if they plan on taking feedback from their customer base to enhance cycles and other design elements, now is our chance as an enthusiast community to help used the industry.

Stackable = YES.

I wonder what this is all about...

Malcolm
 
But most people indicate the wish to wash their comforters, pillows etc in a FL. They have to be dried then. And most comforters that I've seen pretty much fill 3.8 to the brim.

Its just that I don't doubt they could be usefull in some aplications, yet, I don't think they'll be as sucessfull as the few media releases make it look.
 
Last time I looked at buying a combo, it was a Euro style Ariston, cost an arm and a leg and took anywhere between 3-4 hours to wash and dry a single load of laundry with a 1.5 cu.ft tub. Mind you, this was nearly 20 years ago now...

I'm glad to see that combos are making a comeback, especially if they don't take three hours to do a single load of laundry. This does look promising.

I'd like to read some reviews once these hit the market.
 
.
Some of the idea here, i think, is the savings on shipping and storage. I saw Apple shrinking their stuff over the years and knew the cost of transport from China/UPS was part of the reason. Also if you buy one of these directly from their website that eliminates the middlman and his warehouse.
When you bake Linux onto the chip a lot of issues are lessened or eliminated as far as jiggling and such. iPods had hard drives and they coped well.
Also Apple has done well creating enough desire for their products to over come backward compatibility. Time and time again we were told xyz product would fail because it lacked this or that port or other backward compatibility.
The article also states this is the initial effort with a more dedicated design to follow...if they can survive that long.
I'm with appnut, huge comforters are just as much a fad as anything else. Most people this is aimed at have modern insulation and central heating, comforters are a bulky nuisance with the modern materials we now have on the market. Ginormous puffy jacks are long gone and their bed clothes brethren may, for many, not be far behind.
 
I know, I know, people don' fill their machines to the brim, people don't wash comforters, etc.

Yet, there is barley any full-size FL out there below 4ft³.
Wonder why?
And its not only vibration. You know you should clean out your dryer every year or so? And your PC as well?
Now combine them.

@alex Yeah. I was just like starring at my screen in the hope he'd be joking or something.
 

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