Flat-pack washing machine spins a fairer future
positive.news76 points by ohjeez 6 hours ago
76 points by ohjeez 6 hours ago
I love it. I used to work for a company targeting markets in the developing world. It's really easy to take for granted the supply chains that exist all around us. I always like to see the creative solutions people come up with when resources are constrained.
PS: As an example, note the sheet-metal construction. In an industrialized country we would laser-cut all these parts. If you wanted to make this in an area with less infrastructure you might use a template and carbide gas torch to cut out the large shapes, then a hand punch to make the screw holes. More labor intensive, but still doable.
Had the feeling someone must have made a similar design in Japan. And yes:
https://youtu.be/iMOkxrdP6kY?si=HWf_Sb-zwk5Vi8ES
(sold for about 10,000 yens https://item.rakuten.co.jp/thanko/000000003846/)
The metal design in the article is still more flexible and durable. I also assumed the Japanese version would be targeted at disaster situations and/or remote mountain areas and be more repairable, but the cost saving part seems to be a major selling point.
Feel like replacing my piece of shit LG with this. It can only soak for a predetermined amount of time and if I try to pause it to soak longer it drains the water in 3 minutes. Plus, scrud!
At this point with having to read the manual to open the damned door I'm seriously thinking about attaching a belt drive, motor, driver circuit and esp32 running an http with spin/stop commands.
My favorite modern "efficiency" feature has to be the machine refusing to unlock the door for me after it's been "too long". Okay, fine. Reset cycle, add some random item, whoops there went a bunch of water and detergent. Not my problem I guess. Say goodbye to those EnergyStar figures.
It sounds kind of sarcastic, yet that was actually the personal thought also. Really sounds like its comparable to the amount of work with modern machines anyways. Couple minutes of hand cranking, and otherwise, approximately the same. Owned a modern washing machine for years, and not sure if I've ever used almost any of the settings or features other than, "load clothing on default, push start".
Probably sell well in a lot of developed world markets for people who just want to limit their electricity use, live away from the grid, have less reliance on complicated electronics, or minimize money use in an expensive society.
You should use the bedding setting for large quilts and blankets, and the towels setting for towels, it really does work better. Experiment with the other settings so you can see the difference in wash time, water levels, spin speed and then you know which one to choose based on what you want for that load.
Oh and separate your laundry. Don't throw towels, blankets, and clothes in all at the same time.
Why separate laundry? I've tried it in the past, but don't do it anymore. Same result. The stains that can be cleaned get cleaned. The stains that would persist, persist. The only difference is the temperature setting.
As for separating colors - in my life I've had a piece of clothing stain other clothes 2 or 3 times. Once I put some white shirts and they came out pink because of another red shirt. Funny thing is, the pink was very uniform, so it looked as if the shirts were originally pink.
If my washing machine breaks, I'll get a second hand one. If I get a brand new washing machine, it will have to have a manual mode where I can set the desired program manually. For example, what is "towel setting"? If I can't see and modify the setting (e.g., A temperature for B minutes at C RPM, then D temp for E min for F RPM, etc.), I wouldn't use it.
Colors don't bleed much these days. Some might, e.g. on handmade clothing such as tyedye but most commercial colors don't.
If you wash items of different weights, fabrics, etc. together the load can get unbalanced more easily. Such as as single heavy towel or jacket in with a bunch of light synthetic items.
The "towels" setting uses warmer water and faster spin speed but an overall shorter cycle (at least on my washer) compared to the "normal" cycle. This probably presumes that towels usually are made of cotton and aren't very dirty.
I agree that a fully manual mode would be nice. My washer (LG) doesn't have that but by knowing what the various cycles and optional settings (e.g. extra rinse) do you can get pretty close to what you want.
It depends. My clothing doesn't (typically) need to tumble for long whereas towels might and bedding needs to go for much longer. In general it's probably better for fabric to be washed for less time if possible. It wears out.
Also if you pay close attention you'll notice that things don't come fully clean (old machines didn't either) just "clean enough". Throw some well used dog bedding in with your shirts and this fact might become more readily noticable. So it makes sense to wash like-use with like-use for that reason alone.
How much free time do you have to do this?
Wash.
Is clean?
Yes: put in drier.
No: GOTO wash.
My Mom had a washer that did this. I told her to unplug it to soak overnight. That worked, but she hated that thing, sold it, and took my sister's older washer that didn't have any "we know better than you do" features.
Get a speed queen. Famous for being reliable because it’s a “dumb” machine (in a good way).
Destroys your clothes and is mega inefficient in exchange. You can buy better washers than LG washers that are modern.
Nah, maybe the TC-5 could be argued to be relatively inefficient and pretty aggressive on delicate stuff (and loud), but the TR-7 is both efficient and gentle on clothing while being quiet. Have had one for a while and love it. No machine is perfect but this feels pretty close.
The TC5 is fine by me. I've never had a washer that worked this well. The noise level is the last thing I'm worried about when a meaningful cycle completes within 30 minutes.
Does being "inefficient" really matter for a washing machine if you don't live in the desert? Its not like they go through 100+ of gallons of water or ridiculous amounts of electricity even in the worst possible case scenarios.
Actually old top loaders aren't so far off of that number. Maybe 40+ gallons per load.
But still I'm inclined to agree with the general sentiment of not micro optimizing things in ways that make people's lives more difficult.
They are also very heavy duty compared to a normal washer and dryer, even a basic one. I've had mine since 2017 and they just work.
> We went back to the drawing board and really listened to the people we were designing for, for the context in which they lived. That research changed everything,”
I understand they had a very good idea to begin with, and more importantly their heart in the right place And then further made it better with more input.
Reading the comments here the better solution for us is probably not to go back to "dumb" washing machines, but to regain control of how these machines are designed, for who and for what.
I'm thinking about Linux, which can be stripped down as small and nimble as needed to run a single board micro controller, or be large as needed to have everything to run an enterprise service. Being able to do the same with a washing machine would absolutely change their usefulness and place in our society.
I don't know how it could start, perhaps with an IKEA washing machine that actually needs assembly, for users to then tweak the parts, start comminities so we get at least in a KALLAX situation ?
There are lots of little hand-crank washing machines on Alibaba and Amazon. Most are plastic and rather fragile looking. Many seem to use the mechanism of salad spinners. The Sears WonderWash seems to be popular.
Love seeing this.
For many reasons, I expect to see a lot of new products and solutions going against the main trends of locking down the user, planned obsolence, rent seeking from buyers, and limiting their choices.
Imagining a company shipping the home appliances equivalent to Frame.work laptops: open, reparable, hackable, and upgradable. I would happily connect them to my home wifi, program them the way I want, and have one hub that allows me to monitor health, upgrade firmware, control functionality.
I really like the practicality and simplicity of this.
Designing stuff for real humans to use, is really difficult, and really humbling.
In my experience, defense contractors really have to take the user context into account. It can be life or death. I used to work for one, and seeing the stuff come back from the field, was a lesson in humility.
It is easy to understand the impact this will be in people’s lives.
I think within no time it will be modded with motors, maybe salvaged from broken electrical appliances and it will come full circle.
You’d need electricity for that and a lot of places don’t have it.
You'd be surprised at the places that have electricity, like houses in middle of nowhere, central asia. One of the challenges with engineering technology for the global south is that poverty is wildly different for different people. I met a professor working on flatpack windmills to pump water/electricity. The major challenges he kept seeing in the the Andes weren't the sorts of longevity/efficiency/logistics issues we usually solve with standard engineering, but how the products interacted with local politics and society.
To add to AlotOfReading's point, many places have some electricity, just utterly unreliable.
It might be down a few hours every day, or completely cut for days after storms or infra degradation, or the current fluctuate too much for delicate electronics. Many places could also get hold of a gasoline generator.
These kind of variations could require more thinking on the design, but being able to use electricity when available and hand power when needed would be the best.
Ideally the people on the ground thinking about their specific issues and having open ways to adapt the machine for it opens the door for many kind of evolutions.
This is very cool. Great that it’s built out of metal for longevity and repairability. Wonder if they could make the radius of the rotation smaller since that seems like the most likely ergonomic improvement I could see from the demo.
Previously (2021): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28168460
He started in 2018. In 2021 he had shipped 30 (to Iraq). Wanted to ship 7500 in the next 3 years. Fast foward to 2025: he has shipped 500 in 13 countries. Hopefully, with his partnerships and local production (in India) his ramp-up will fasten up. I wish him luck.
Wait does it not need a rise as well to get the soap out of the clothes?
I noticed that too. Does anyone know what happens if you don’t rinse the clothes?
Checks all the boxes but why no TEDx talk?
Deleted cause I was wrong.
The THIRD sentence in the article explains that they ship to the US. You are tone-policing your hallucinated version of the article!
> Enter Navjot Sawhney, who founded the UK-based social enterprise The Washing Machine Project (TWMP) to tackle this, and has now shipped almost 500 of his hand-crank Divya machines to 13 countries, including Mexico, Ghana, Iraq *and the US.*
Can you give one example of someone you know or have heard of who could benefit from one of these as opposed to a really cheap rental grade 120vac modern washing machine? You’d have to not have electricity to need one of these and rural electrification was a thing over 100 years ago here.
TFA states units have been shipped to the US.
I wouldn't be surprised if the US ones weren't mostly used by people with camp sites. Even the poorest people have elctricity. But affluent people have remote camps.
But can it really clean clothes if it doesn’t have 802.11ac with AI spot cleaning and a 750mv iOS app??? /s
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