6 ms·

I 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

by arjie 1y ago

I 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.

bitslayer 1y ago
>I wish the description of the video was like an abstract. Business opportunity something something AI
- small_scombrus 1y ago
  YouTube are already doing it! :(
  - docmars 1y ago
    Not very well, it's always too vague. Good opportunity to compete with a browser extension or service!
    - mavhc 1y ago
      google'd [ai summary youtube transcript] and there's already at least 10
redundantly 1y ago
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.
- kurttheviking 1y ago
  My issue is the pods fail to dissolve ~5% of the time and leave a gunk that clogs the dispenser which again requires time and effort to clean. I'm convinced by the video to try powder again but I've had the filming issue with almost every powder I've tried. So, we'll see what happens...
  - hackama 1y ago
    I'm convinced pods broke my dishwasher. I switched to powder years ago and haven't had a problem since.
  - lou1306 1y ago
    I have a pet theory this is due to a wet pod tray: the pod's film partially melts and sticks to the tray before it's released. I made a habit of wiping the tray dry with a piece of paper before loading the pod and this stopped happening to me.
    - conorcleary 1y ago
      How do you wash the piece of paper?
- yumraj 1y ago
  My process is to use cheap Walmart powder for prewash and Kirkland pods in the dispenser. Avoids any over filling issues. I used to just use the Kirkland pods and they worked fine too. The reason I started using powder in prewash is to get any loose fat dissolved so that it doesn’t clog over a period of time, not sure if that’s a valid concern. And yes, I do run hot water before starting the dishwasher.
- bombcar 1y ago
  I just want a dishwasher and washing machine that I can load with gallons of soap once a month or whatever, and let it do the detail work for me. I know they exist in the commercial realm, but I'm not 100% certain the wife is ready for a Hobart machine in the kitchen ...
altairprime 1y ago
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.)
slackpad 1y ago
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.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  Videos are for fun. Nobody needs to know the conclusion in isolation. If you wanted a stream of boring facts, there could be a service for that, which nobody would use.
- vasco 1y ago
  > 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 Oh summer child, they do that because they'd serve less ads.
  - red-iron-pine 1y ago
    clickbait gotta bait
mitthrowaway2 1y ago
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.
- bakje 1y ago
  Running the hot water tap beforehand assumes that the dishwasher is hooked up to the hot water in the first place, which isn’t common everywhere. Where I live this feature is called hot fill, I believe, and a lot of dishwashers don’t even support it. For those that do support its still generally not recommended to use it since the dishwasher now can’t do any rinsing with cold water, which is not only wasteful but I’ve heard the hot water can damage the water softener in your dishwasher. But if you do hook it up to hot water (which is a lot more common in the US, I think) this makes a lot of sense.
  - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
    And lo, there is verily even more information presented in the video than this thread has yet revealed. For what Alec says in the video is that this purge-the-cold-water advice is specific to North America, and he even explains the reasons why!
    - bakje 1y ago
      Haha I have to admit I didn’t watch the whole video. In which case my comment still stands for those who also haven’t watched the whole video, which is probably a fair amount of people
    - krige 1y ago
      He does mention it has to do with voltage and heating systems. I think it's something he covered on his kettle vid.
      - inferiorhuman 1y ago
magicalhippo 1y ago
> 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-oppvaskmiddel-billigvariant-stryker-med-glans/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/test-av-oppvaskmidd...
- adamors 1y ago
  He demonstrates this in the video as well. Powder/tablet from the same company performed differently, the powder seems to be deliberately underpowered.
  - szundi 1y ago
    [dead]
- graemep 1y ago
  Powders should perform better for the reasons explained - that was the reason he prefers powder, not the cost. The problem is that the powder in the pods is better than the loose powder. The solution might be to put powder in the pre-wash tray and a pod in the dispenser. Or you could cut the pods and split the powder between the prewash and the dispenser.
  - tharkun__ 1y ago
    Dunno what you have available, but since watching his video on powders I've always just broken off part of the powder pods we use. We have the Finish tabs with the red ball in the middle (that's what our Costco carries, so that's what we use). I just break off on one side of the red ball and then crumble that up for the pre-wash. It usually breaks off super easily into three parts: The remaining tab with the red ball attached and two smaller pieces. If you rub the smaller pieces against each other, they break up super easily into powdered form. No cutting required.
hebelehubele 1y ago
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.
- floppyd 1y ago
  I did something similar a while back, but I treat it as "text thumbnails" and kind of replace YT frontpage with this. I don't use it all the time, but sometimes the clickbait is too much. Also I should add Gemini (the app) is able to access YT transcripts most of the time, so sometimes I'd just paste the link and ask for a tldr. One of the few reasons to go for Gemini app, not google ai studio. That said, Technology Connections is worth watching just because videos are very pleasant, it's probably my favorite YT subscription right now.
- yomismoaqui 1y ago
  I did something similar but as a Chrome extension using Gemini 2.5 Flash (or Flash Lite) for summarizing. On the page it shows an extra TLDR button near the like button. You can change the prompt to modify how the summary looks and has an optional mode with links to specific timestamps.
- dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
  Mind sharing the script? It's becoming a big problem to me: people send me links to "must watch videos" but neither the title nor description nor subchapter titles tell me what it actually is about. In this particular case, it's spending 40 minutes of my life on something that could be explained in 4 sentences.
  - SiempreViernes 1y ago
    The more common solution I've seen is asking the person sending the link for clarification.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
      "It won't be the same if I just tell you, you have to watch it" - my mom on the video of some fake MD selling his miraculous variant of vitamin C that cures everything from cancer to dementia.
jancsika 1y ago
> 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.
- arjie 1y ago
  Oh I love Electron. The day of the Linux desktop arrived and no one noticed because there's no difference in platform anymore! All apps are available everywhere and the functionality is equivalent. This is so much of a difference from my childhood. This is definitely an example of increased computing power enabling new use cases (full cross-platform support) at lower cost.
kjkjadksj 1y ago
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.
solsane 1y ago
I find that the pods are less effective, even without following those steps. (Disclaimer: I use gel)

by arjie 1y ago

bitslayer 1y ago

>I wish the description of the video was like an abstract. Business opportunity something something AI

small_scombrus 1y ago
YouTube are already doing it! :(
- docmars 1y ago
  Not very well, it's always too vague. Good opportunity to compete with a browser extension or service!
  - mavhc 1y ago
    google'd [ai summary youtube transcript] and there's already at least 10

redundantly 1y ago

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.

kurttheviking 1y ago
My issue is the pods fail to dissolve ~5% of the time and leave a gunk that clogs the dispenser which again requires time and effort to clean. I'm convinced by the video to try powder again but I've had the filming issue with almost every powder I've tried. So, we'll see what happens...
- hackama 1y ago
  I'm convinced pods broke my dishwasher. I switched to powder years ago and haven't had a problem since.
- lou1306 1y ago
  I have a pet theory this is due to a wet pod tray: the pod's film partially melts and sticks to the tray before it's released. I made a habit of wiping the tray dry with a piece of paper before loading the pod and this stopped happening to me.
  - conorcleary 1y ago
    How do you wash the piece of paper?
yumraj 1y ago
My process is to use cheap Walmart powder for prewash and Kirkland pods in the dispenser. Avoids any over filling issues. I used to just use the Kirkland pods and they worked fine too. The reason I started using powder in prewash is to get any loose fat dissolved so that it doesn’t clog over a period of time, not sure if that’s a valid concern. And yes, I do run hot water before starting the dishwasher.
bombcar 1y ago
I just want a dishwasher and washing machine that I can load with gallons of soap once a month or whatever, and let it do the detail work for me. I know they exist in the commercial realm, but I'm not 100% certain the wife is ready for a Hobart machine in the kitchen ...

altairprime 1y ago

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.)

slackpad 1y ago

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.

foxglacier 1y ago
Videos are for fun. Nobody needs to know the conclusion in isolation. If you wanted a stream of boring facts, there could be a service for that, which nobody would use.
vasco 1y ago
> 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 Oh summer child, they do that because they'd serve less ads.
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  clickbait gotta bait

mitthrowaway2 1y ago

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.

bakje 1y ago
Running the hot water tap beforehand assumes that the dishwasher is hooked up to the hot water in the first place, which isn’t common everywhere. Where I live this feature is called hot fill, I believe, and a lot of dishwashers don’t even support it. For those that do support its still generally not recommended to use it since the dishwasher now can’t do any rinsing with cold water, which is not only wasteful but I’ve heard the hot water can damage the water softener in your dishwasher. But if you do hook it up to hot water (which is a lot more common in the US, I think) this makes a lot of sense.
- mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  And lo, there is verily even more information presented in the video than this thread has yet revealed. For what Alec says in the video is that this purge-the-cold-water advice is specific to North America, and he even explains the reasons why!
  - bakje 1y ago
    Haha I have to admit I didn’t watch the whole video. In which case my comment still stands for those who also haven’t watched the whole video, which is probably a fair amount of people
  - krige 1y ago
    He does mention it has to do with voltage and heating systems. I think it's something he covered on his kettle vid.
    - inferiorhuman 1y ago

magicalhippo 1y ago

> 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-oppvaskmiddel-billigvariant-stryker-med-glans/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/test-av-oppvaskmidd...

adamors 1y ago
He demonstrates this in the video as well. Powder/tablet from the same company performed differently, the powder seems to be deliberately underpowered.
- szundi 1y ago
  [dead]
graemep 1y ago
Powders should perform better for the reasons explained - that was the reason he prefers powder, not the cost. The problem is that the powder in the pods is better than the loose powder. The solution might be to put powder in the pre-wash tray and a pod in the dispenser. Or you could cut the pods and split the powder between the prewash and the dispenser.
- tharkun__ 1y ago
  Dunno what you have available, but since watching his video on powders I've always just broken off part of the powder pods we use. We have the Finish tabs with the red ball in the middle (that's what our Costco carries, so that's what we use). I just break off on one side of the red ball and then crumble that up for the pre-wash. It usually breaks off super easily into three parts: The remaining tab with the red ball attached and two smaller pieces. If you rub the smaller pieces against each other, they break up super easily into powdered form. No cutting required.

hebelehubele 1y ago

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.

floppyd 1y ago
I did something similar a while back, but I treat it as "text thumbnails" and kind of replace YT frontpage with this. I don't use it all the time, but sometimes the clickbait is too much. Also I should add Gemini (the app) is able to access YT transcripts most of the time, so sometimes I'd just paste the link and ask for a tldr. One of the few reasons to go for Gemini app, not google ai studio. That said, Technology Connections is worth watching just because videos are very pleasant, it's probably my favorite YT subscription right now.
yomismoaqui 1y ago
I did something similar but as a Chrome extension using Gemini 2.5 Flash (or Flash Lite) for summarizing. On the page it shows an extra TLDR button near the like button. You can change the prompt to modify how the summary looks and has an optional mode with links to specific timestamps.
dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
Mind sharing the script? It's becoming a big problem to me: people send me links to "must watch videos" but neither the title nor description nor subchapter titles tell me what it actually is about. In this particular case, it's spending 40 minutes of my life on something that could be explained in 4 sentences.
- SiempreViernes 1y ago
  The more common solution I've seen is asking the person sending the link for clarification.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
    "It won't be the same if I just tell you, you have to watch it" - my mom on the video of some fake MD selling his miraculous variant of vitamin C that cures everything from cancer to dementia.

jancsika 1y ago

> 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.

arjie 1y ago
Oh I love Electron. The day of the Linux desktop arrived and no one noticed because there's no difference in platform anymore! All apps are available everywhere and the functionality is equivalent. This is so much of a difference from my childhood. This is definitely an example of increased computing power enabling new use cases (full cross-platform support) at lower cost.

kjkjadksj 1y ago

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.

solsane 1y ago

I find that the pods are less effective, even without following those steps. (Disclaimer: I use gel)