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A socialite who hated washing dishes invented the automated dishwasher
- supernova87a 6y agoOh, I thought the urban legend was that she was fed up with the servants breaking her prized porcelain so she wanted a machine that would wash automatically and safely. (actually the article says that as well)
- grosswait 6y agoAnd I thought that situation lead to the invention of Correll...
- felipelemos 6y agoBoth are true. FTA: "As a socialite, she was expected to hold frequent dinner parties. She served the meals on her expensive, heirloom china. When the household staff hand-washed the dishes, the delicate china often got chipped. She opted to wash the dishes herself, but after she damaged many a plate, she decided to design and build a machine that could handle the task—faster and more carefully."
- askvictor 6y agoOr she could have paid for more careful servants (or more of them so they could spend more time being careful)
- microcolonel 6y agoSemi-related: anyone here, like me, not find automated dishwashers very useful? To me it seems to take nearly the same amount of soap exposure, and time at the sink, to wash dishes by hand. Maybe if I needed gloves, I'd get frustrated with the smell your hands take on from dishgloves, but honestly washing dishes (particularly dishes that aren't precious) is pretty easy.
- redmorphium 6y agoa lot of people tend to think you need to pre-rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. no, you don't: in fact, this can remove the substrate that's needed for the detergent to be most effective. most of my dishes, which I have a lot of: finish eating/drinking, straight in, no sink stage.
- nradov 6y agoSomehow I've never been able to convince my wife to stop pre-rinsing.
- aidenn0 6y agoMaybe because when people get their first dishwasher, they are single and it takes days to get a full load? When food hardens overnight they work a lot less well.
- wombatmobile 6y agoHow often do you clean the filter in the sump?
- crooked-v 6y agoMine has a line that runs to my garbage disposal, so normally no special cleaning is needed.
- vel0city 6y agoMost dishwashers are designed to drain into the disposal, but they usually still have some kind of filter going to the sump before that line. Maybe you have some extraordinary model which truly has no sump filter, but otherwise you should still regularly examine and clean out your sump filter even if your dishwasher drains to the disposal. The water in the dishwasher is being reused by the pump and sprayer while in cycle. The sump filter ensures no particles larger than the sprayer heads are being sucked up by the pump and pushed through to the sprayer jets, as tough food particles could damage the pump or get clogged into the sprayer heads.
- sanxiyn 6y agoThis is an uplifting story that shows the true spirit of humanity. Go inventors! Go humanity!
- fitbitq 6y agoTip for the pro when buying a dishwasher. Make sure the distance between so lower and upper drawer is big enought that the "washing wheels" can still spin if you have your plates inside. My new Whirlpool dishwasher is nearly useless.
- Scoundreller 6y agoAre all of your plates oversized? Or square so they don’t sit a bit below the level of the bottom rack? Not that there’s an iso standard for plate size, but I have a hard time imagining this being a common issue.
- aidenn0 6y agoMost Bosch washers have adjustable racks. It's great.
- wombatmobile 6y agoHow often do you clean the sump filter in your Bosch? If you don't do it often, do you get Error 24?
- aidenn0 6y agoI've only had to do it once (3yr old machine), maybe every 2 years or so? Never seen error 24; I can just tell by ear when it's slowing because our air-gap seems to amplify the sound of draining water.
- piceas 6y agoNot often enough and yes. And then error 9 after the heater shorts out when the top up salt warning stops working :/ Fortunately the pump with integrated heater strip is relatively easy to replace.
- bserge 6y agoI hated those heaters. The most common failure point. Made a lot of money selling them, though :D And replacing the pump/heater assembly on a Bosch/Siemens is harder than on Indesit/Beko/Whirlpool. Have to fiddle with a screwdriver and a flashlight from the side. On that note, the drainage needs cleaning often (or the sensor whines about it), and I liked the water flow sensor (which they use instead of a pressure switch) on Bosch/Siemens.
- obilgic 6y agoSite doesn't even scroll on Chrome
- unnouinceput 6y agoIf you need a divine sign to switch to Firefox I think that was it. I did it 2 years ago, never had any issues.
- vulcan01 6y agoYou need to click Continue in the top right (to skip the ad).
- m463 6y agoI also spend 10x the time automating something instead of just doing that damn work. It's how procrastination works. "If I only added colorized ascii to my command, I probably wouldn't have to really read the output"
- Scoundreller 6y agoI wish they invented the dual side-by-side dishwasher. I want separate dirty and clean units. I’m tired of using the sink or shelves as a buffer. Just pull from the clean unit and push into the dirty unit and rotate which is which. Voilà, dramatically less handling.
- aidenn0 6y agoCommercial units have racks that are separate, you stack the racks when done and they can dry and be stored.
- neckardt 6y ago> I wish they invented the dual side-by-side dishwasher. Have you considered buying two dish washers? I don't think this needs an invention.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> I don't think this needs an invention Cabinets with integrated dishwashers would be something... Look like cabinets from outside, but with racks inside and once filled with dirty dishes, seal and wash everything. Not a bad idea.
- gowld 6y agoThat already exists. Cabinets are just doors and finishes; the cabinet maker can add them to your dishwasher.
- JumpCrisscross 6y agoGrabbing things out of a cabinet is easier than grabbing things out of a dishwasher. And I think other things would need to change to make it work above ground level, e.g. sealing with side swinging doors. But there is certainly a market for something like this, albeit in the $100,000 range.
- Xcelerate 6y agoI find that recent models of dishwashers don’t work nearly as well as older models. They don’t heat up enough to dry water off of plastic, and the enzyme based detergents don’t seem to clean as well as the old phosphate detergents. Also, the dishwasher in our current apartment (a cheap Whirlpool) often leaves a wet dog smell on the glasses, and we can’t figure out where it comes from or how to get rid of it. Apparently, this is a rather common problem, with hundreds of posts scattered across the internet where people with the same problem unsuccessfully try dozens of home remedies that fail to fix the issue. I never remember wet dog smell from the older units so I can only assume this results from some sort of energy saving feature that backfired.
- briefcomment 6y agoMaybe it doesn't dry enough to remove all moisture, and there's mold/mildew in some of the rubber areas, like what happens in washers.
- tommymachine 6y agoThe regulations on the wash cycles, including water volume, time, energy, and detergents, are very restrictive. Older units were not subject to the same regulations. For example, due to laws in California most commercial dish detergents won’t contain TSP (trisodium phosphate). I’ve been adding a bit of powdered TSP with the detergent pod to each load and it seems to have improved the results.
- copperx 6y agoI believe detergents never used TSP to begin with; they used another more unstable posphate which worked better.
- Symbiote 6y agoSo fuck the environment, the rules are for other people?
- tommymachine 6y ago
- unnouinceput 6y agoA socialite I can get behind. Imagine modern socialites doing the same!! Like, for example, Paris Hilton to invent cool new tech stuff instead of being famous for "one night in Paris".
- Kaze404 6y agoParis Hilton is famous for: 1) Being a (mildly) successful actress 2) Being a model 3) Being an incredibly successful DJ (she was the highest paid DJ in the world in 2014, with a residence in Ibiza from 2013 to 2017) 4) Owning a perfume line that's brought over 3 billion US Dollars in revenue I sincerely dislike defending rich people online, but it's weird to see an entrepreneur as successful as Paris being bashed in HN of all places.
- unnouinceput 6y agoGo and ask any guy on any street, see what you get when you'll ask "what's Paris Hilton famous for?".
- maneesh 6y agoI’ve never understood why there is no ‘in-sink’ dishwasher. Many American sinks have two basins, and the second basin often contains a dish rack for drying dishes. Why not just have a top cover that you lay over the second basin, that you could close? There’s already a drain, so the water has somewhere to go. Ideally you could use the already existing faucet to provide the water source to negate the need for a pump — just attach the faucet to a spout, and it provides the pressure to wash the dish. Since the racks are cheap, you could fill it up, turn on the dishwasher, and then just move it to the side to dry, and swap in the empty rack to start the process all over again. Seems so obvious to me, and cheap to build too. Am I missing something?
- db48x 6y agoYou need a pump (and a filter) to recirculate the water, a heater for hotter water, and you need volume so that you can arrange everything so that they aren't touching and can all be washed. With a washing machine the size of half my sink, I'd be able to wash my largest pot and nothing else. With my small dishwasher, I can wash my largest pot plus almost everything else that's likely to need washing. Plus you'll want a seal that can keep in the steam, and some insulation to reduce the amount of energy you use continually reheating the water. Where does the lid go when you're not washing something? Does it lie flat on the counter next to the sink, taking up space you won't be able to use for anything else? What about the hinges? They'll be splashed with water repeatedly when you use the sink, so they won't last forever. But sure, you could build a dishwasher into a sink; it's not impossible.
- askvictor 6y agoThere are half-height dishwashers, and also ones that fit on top of the bench, but they are both generally bigger than would fit in a sink.
- aaron695 6y agoI wish we targeted rich people with a lot more of things like these. Convince them clean air is more important for their health than the next Mediterranean carnivore diet and we might start getting the tech we need. They quickly get followed by the middle class pretending to be rich, then it becomes mass produced and available to the poor. I think the privacy aspects of automation would also be what the rich value. A servant who isn't around to clean your dishes is one less gossip.
- 082349872349872 6y agoIIUC, for all that people explicitly complained about not being able to find good help anymore, "one less gossip", especially in the zero gossips[1] limit, was a strong implicit driver for household automation[2]. Phone for the fish knives, Norman As cook is a little unnerved [1] especially now that one can verify consumation via the 'gram instead of either doing so conspicously in public or relying upon the servant grapevine to spread the word. [2] this is a falsifiable hypothesis: it will be interesting to see how covid lockdown in india affects middle class household employment.
- wlll 6y ago> Mediterranean carnivore diet I'd be surprised if that was a thing. In my experience Mediterranean cooking traditionally revolves around fish, beans and vegetables.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoBased purely on vacations and resorts, countries like Greece and Turkey have plenty of meat options.
- wlll 6y agoI don't think that's what people mean by a "Mediterranean diet", vacations and resorts aren't really representative of a traditional diet, which is what I think people are referring to.
- andai 6y agoDoes anyone have experience with big industrial dishwashers? We had one at a school I visited, based in an old military barracks. It was about the size of a large fridge, extremely loud (used high pressure) and cleaned dishes spotless in about 15 seconds. I've wanted one of those ever since, along with one of those giant laundromat washing machines with shock absorbers that run a spin cycle in complete silence.
- zygy 6y agoAutoclaves! They're used in industrial kitchens and life science labs.
- sushid 6y agoAre you sure? I've used autoclaves in labs and I'd imagine it'd take longer than that to just pressurize, much less be done and out, in 15 seconds.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zygy 6y agoAh yup my mistake -- it's this kind of thing: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/INEO-Restaurant-Hood-Type-Commercial-Dishwasher_466000103.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/INEO-Restaurant-Hood-... Autoclaves are used in the food industry too, but you're right those are very different: https://www.steriflow.com/en/Autoclaves-sterilization-alimentary https://www.steriflow.com/en/Autoclaves-sterilization-alimen...
- PandaHug 6y agoI used to work in a restaurant where we had one! So good
- copperx 6y agoThere's a blog post somewhere in the web of someone that installed a commercial dishwasher in his kitchen. It requires 220 V and uses an enormous amount of power, but it cleans a load in 90 seconds.
- psadri 6y agoI wish I had a Roomba like device that would water our house plants. Anyone here can help?
- kimjongtrill 6y agoCan’t you just use those bulb things?
- saddestcatever 6y agoThese? Link: https://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Globes-AG011706-Watering-2-Pack/dp/B000FHAJ90 https://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Globes-AG011706-Watering-2-Pack/... I've found them to be extremely annoying. Great for plants such as succulents that need only a little bit of water, so you can set and forget. But for plants that need more water, I've found them to be less efficient due to the time to fill than hand watering.
- prennert 6y agoI am actually looking into building something that helps with watering house plants. Is your problem that you forget to water them, overwater them or just the sheer amount it takes to water your plants because you have so many? (Or maybe something else?)
- qz2 6y agoWe just replaced them all with cacti. There’s a dead one on the window sill in the living room I forgot to water that still looks pretty good!
- chaostheory 6y agoI feel that you need a hydroponics setup instead
- taejo 6y agoYou need one for each plant, unlike a Roomba, but self-watering planters are a thing (and two dozen of them are probably cheaper than one robot)
- 6y ago
- jelliclesfarm 6y agohttps://dishcraft.com/ https://dishcraft.com/ : what dishcraft is doing now...dishwashing robots. dishwashing at restaurants..as a service.
- FractalParadigm 6y agoDAAS, interesting concept. However, I'm now left wondering what type of work or jobs you could not turn into an "xxxx-as-a-service." Dishwashing was something I never expected to see offered in this model.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoCould work for large volumes, but TBH I feel like the logistics involved make it overly complicated; the industrial dishwashers mentioned elsewhere take like 90 seconds for a run. Why spend the time loading, driving, unloading, cleaning, loading, driving, unloading for a 90 second cycle? I mean I get it when it comes to laundry (at hotel scale), the volume of stuff is much larger, it's not fragile so packaging and handling is a lot safer, and they use massive industrial laundry machines. One laundry factory can handle multiple hotels too.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoThere is AI involved. That means data and visual identification. It would be very easy to turn this into an automatic plating robot. When they were giving out google glass years ago, I remember talking to a Belgium company that was using it in food service to train employees. Example: assembling a hamburger. First teach glass what is lettuce, bun, condiments etc and the order in which it will go. Next when a new employee comes..all they have to do is wear glass..then it would highlight which item would go in which order to assemble a hamburger. Etc. The dishwashing robot ..IMO..should be the first step to an automated restaurant kitchen. Or catering outfit. Or cruise ship. I have fine dining BoH experience and I can see that there are many possibilities here. So easy to train if it has a vision system. My 2c.
- loosetypes 6y agoSomeone in robotics once told me that successful automation looks like a dishwasher. It’s stuck with me.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt's a good saying; every once in a while there's a post on HN about yet another household robot, but people forget that things like washing machines and dishwashers are the only robots that will actually end up in people's homes in the long run; things that try to be more generic will remain hobby / research projects for a good while longer.
- timonoko 6y agoWe had such pressure-operated dish-washer in 1958. It operated spendidly until the kitchenmaid advertized how convenient it was. They realized it wasted about a ton of heated water everytime, no recirculation of any kind. And this heat was created by janitor shovelling coal in the boilerroom for hours everyday. No central heating plants in Helsinki at that time.
- mrkramer 6y agoWell Bill Gates once said: "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."
- PeterStuer 6y agoAlternative reading (2020 IT industry edition) Berates staff for 'not doing it right', 'I'll do it myself'. Fails in exactly the same way. Sketches a machine 'that should do it'. Hires engineer to 'make it work'. Files patent in own name.
- 082349872349872 6y agoFair enough, the engineer was doing work for hire.
- prawn 6y agoIt amazes me that after widespread adoption of dishwashers, we still build very customised bathrooms into houses that require manual labour to clean each surface - tiles/grout, basins, benchtops, toilets, floors, etc. A bathroom that could be sealed and cleaned as though it was a dishwasher would be great. For everything but the toilet, lightly pressured spray of hot water would probably be sufficient. Throw the towels in the wash, close the waterproofed door, press the cleaning button and head off to work. Then the door/vents open to air it out after the cleaning process. There are public toilets that do it so surely we could make an attractive home version of that? And if not the entire bathroom, at least have self-cleaning toilets rather than almost every single model being a slightly different shape so there's no standardised solution better than a toilet brush. The lifetime cost of paid cleaners or just cleaning the bathroom yourself has to be worth something that could be invested into a bathroom upgrade when building.
- latentpot 6y agoYou're onto something here
- ehonda 6y agoThat's how I remodeled my bathroom. I opted against materials that require grout lines, among other things. It looks boring and utilitarian but its a hell of a lot easier to clean.
- sjg007 6y agoGiant fiberglass bathroom?
- kalleboo 6y agoAKA a Japanese "Unit Bathroom" https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+unit+bathroom&client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk02AraMlwr-mivJ0qBx7tL53wwvncA:1602163519757&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX9d2bjKXsAhUKA4gKHZx2Aj4Q_AUoAXoECBUQAw&biw=1742&bih=1536 https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+unit+bathroom&clien...
- 6y ago
- crumbshot 6y ago> She designed her first model in the shed behind her house in Shelbyville, Ill. Her lack of formal engineering education, however, became an obstacle, so she sought out someone who could help. Mechanic George Butters agreed to assist her in building the prototype. So the engineer did all the actual hard work here in coming up with a working prototype, but the wealthy funder takes almost all of the credit, and puts the patent solely in their name. A much fairer framing would be that the two of them were co-inventors.
- je_bailey 6y agoNo. She came up with the idea, she built the prototype, she had the vision. To name some lackey who only did what they were told an inventor is a disservice.
- crumbshot 6y agoThey both built the prototype. Without a proof of concept that has the actual details figured out to make it work, it's just an idea. Downplaying the essential role of an experienced and knowledgeable engineer as merely being a "lackey" is the real disservice.
- je_bailey 6y agoYour making assumptions here. There's no details on what exactly was needed from an engineering perspective. Was it design? Was it merely the knowledge to work the tools? She hired this person, but would any engineer have worked? If all he did was follow instructions and a plan and build what she designed then he was a lackey. Now he may have been more then that. But all the information I've seen so far has pointed to her being the designer, her being the driving force for this.
- disown 6y agoLackey? That's like saying steve jobs founded apple and steve wozniak was a lackey. Ideas aren't worth anything unless you have someone who can actually turn the idea into a reality. Strange to see this kind of dismissive response of an actual engineer here.