alt Hacker NewsI 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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
> 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.
I find that the pods are less effective, even without following those steps. (Disclaimer: I use gel)
>I wish the description of the video was like an abstract.
Business opportunity something something AI
> 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...