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Comment by andy_ppp | Hacker News Reader

For those on the lazy web like me; the answer is fill a hollow plastic counter weight with water when the machine is installed rather than lug great slabs of concrete round the world.

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That's like a huge "duh, why didn't they do that" sort of thing. Wow. Theoretically, they could probably make all of the free space in the washer part of a giant tupperware style container and allow filling of different compartments to precisely balance the machine.

And the answer is... cheap computing power. If the plastic balance isn't full or leaks out, the spin cycle becomes extremely dangerous. Traditionally we used a system that was not prone to this kind of failure, but now that the cycle is computer controlled and we have cheap accelerometers we can use a more complicated but lighter alternative safely.

Why do you need a precise weight? Isn't it mass just there to keep the machine from vibrating, like the heavier the better? As opposed to some weight on a propeller that are carefully calibrated to offset any asymmetry.

A container of water is highly susceptible to harmonic vibrations in a way that a slab of concrete is not.

Not if fully toped?

Concrete weighs 2.5 as much per given volume 150 vs 62 pounds per cubic foot. So, there are significant trade offs involved.

Also, adding a sealed water container creates a few more ways for these things to break down which was a larger concern when washing machines lasted ~5x as long.

What if they used sand instead of water?

Then you need to pay to ship sand. The upside is it would probably be easier to install, downside if it breaks you need to deal with sand.

But it doesn't need to be shipped from the factory in China to the user. Sand can be locally sourced cheaply. Washing machine installers just need an additional material on their truck, in addition to the tools and plumbing supplies they already carry. 25kg of sand costs $0.50 from a landscaping yard.

Somehow, I don't think they ship the concrete blocks from China.

Why not? Concrete is cheap in China and shipping is cheap right now.

Well, I don't know about your house, but in my house I don't have hoses with free-flowing sand guaranteed to be right next to my washing machine when I install it. A washing machine that required you to buy sand too would have a hard time in the market; it may be irrational in some sense, but that would be perceived as a huge installation burden by the market and it would not do well.

Excellent points.

Do you have the sand at home? If no, hoards of customers would have to fetch it one by one from some supply, actually causing more environmental damage in sum

At the very least you could have removable concrete piece. What's hard to move is a big heavy thing. A big light thing and a small heavy thing are easier to transport.

> when washing machines lasted ~5x as long

Planned obsolescence is so damned depressing. Imagine how much CO2 and energy could be saved if washing machines simply lasted as long as they did 25 years ago (concrete counterweight or not!). It's sad to see these examples of how consumerism and marketing have actually reversed the progress of humanity.

Is it not possible to legally mandate a minimum level of quality for motors, bearings, repairability etc? I guess this stuff is incredibly hard to do without creating weird unintended consequences.

Washing machines are build to die by design now. Most disposable brands (Samsung, LG, Electrolux, Whirlpool, anything from supermarket) use specially selected unprotected alloy in the spider (part holding drum to the shaft).

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?...

Fun fact - drum itself is stainless. Good brands (Miele) use stainless spider and are bulletproof.

Only issue might be the container not being 100% full causing the water inside to slosh and increase the vibrations. (Probably not that hard to solve)

>(Probably not that hard to solve)

Yeah, just throw a 2 channel PID controller and a bunch of servos. It most likely be rather cheap (sarcasm)

Most probably the new washing machine will have a microprocessor anyway being IoT ;), so it's just the cost of sensors and servos that adds to the BOM.

As a side note, and JFYI, a celebration of connected washers (by IBM):

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/washing-iot-sol...

Particularly:

>New business transformation opportunities can be explored whereby the washing machine itself can be turned into a service where the thing is not purchased, but given to the user, with the user adopting a pay per wash experience.

The first example of WAASH (Washing As A Service, Hot) I ever saw.

Aah, this the devious "product as a service" model, at least here they properly call it leasing, unlike the companies that adopted Keurigification

I am not sure to understand, actually they (I mean the cited IBM article authors) don't call it "leasing", they explicitly promote the idea of "pay per wash".

Oh, well if it is so, then it is also an Example of Keurigification

Washing can be the free tier, and then monetize by coverting to premium(dryer).

It's a washing machine, it needs to be hooked up to a pressurized water pipe anyways. Just hook up the tank (before the valve) and it should always be completely full.

> It's a washing machine, it needs to be hooked up to a pressurized water pipe anyways.

There's an Aqua-Stop (with multiple valves, including a passive, magnetic one that works even in power loss situations) right after the water pipe connection, to avoid water damage in case the pipe or a valve inside the machine breaks.

Automatically filling the tanks is dangerous, because it will lead to issues in case e.g. the air-outlet gets stuck due to rust or lime particles from the pipe entering the tank with the water.

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