Samsung ecobubble washing machines

[andyr12345]

Hi Andy,
with our samsung washing machine In the marketing blurb it says that the Samsung ecobubble washing machine mixes water / air plus detergent to help lift stains and dissolve them (something like maybe that vanish oxyclean stuff I suppose does in that way) but i am a bit skeptical (as normal LOL)  - I wonder if thats true about the air?, and without me taking apart the machine and looking at the ecobubble generator what do you reckon? 

I mean if you just had a bowl of water and just mixed the  liquid detergent with your fingers, no air involved its going to all mix up regardless isnt it and bubble up ? 

even my washing machine does not represent this graphic , because I have had the top off and the big black hose goes from the bottom of the soap dispenser drawer  straight into the top of the outer tub same as nearly all other washing machines ... and not down to the ecobubble generator like in this graphic representation: 





What do you reckon ? just another marketing gimmick or do you reckon it really does mix water/air and detergent together? 

 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Hi Andy. I'm afraid I'm quite sceptical too. I may be being unfair to them, but my impression is that the white goods appliance manufacturers that were originally brown goods manufacturers focus too much on innovation and unique features. I think it's simply that this is what they know, this is what works, and this is what makes successful brown goods products like TVs, cameras, and even phones.

But I believe it is a mistake to think that this approach will work as well with white goods. There is a massive difference between white goods and brown goods. Brown goods are sexy, customers replace them all the time - often when there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. They love sexy features, they love gimmicks, and they love new and advanced features. This drives the sale of those products very well.

But with white goods, very few people get excited about them. Your love of white goods appliances is quite rare 🙂

For most people, they are functional necessities, to be replaced as fewer times as possible. And even then with great reluctance and annoyance. So these kinds of novel features shouldn't really drive new sales. It is fair to say that they may well tempt people to buy once they have reluctantly accepted that they need a new one. So that at least can drive sales for them. But it's highly unlikely to tempt anybody to upgrade their white good supply and that is otherwise working.

Over the years I've seen many innovations and novel features from the brown goods manufacturers' washing machines, such as Samsung and LG. But I've never noticed any that I personally have felt genuinely advances the design and function of washing machines. There are things like direct drive, being able to open a flap in the door to push a missed sock inside, and potentially things like this. My logic is that if they were genuinely advancing things along, then all of the other manufacturers would have long since copied or created similar.

These are just my opinions based on no real or full knowledge of the products, so I could be wrong. Here is an article I wrote on this particular subject some while ago Samsung ecobubble washing machine review

[andyr12345]

thanks for the reply Andy. 

if there is one thing I hate its being lied to ... but not only that being lied to by big companies I am about to part my hard worked wonga on 😄

If I see their graphics and ads saying it does this and that and it dont do it like they have advertised I feel ... er done! LOL 

Take that graphic of how they explain ecobubble works - if I see in that video that the detergent and water gets taken all the way down to that bubble generator and mixes water air and detergent then thats what I want to see when I take the lid off my washing machine! - not just going from detergent draw straight into the outer drum like all the other same (cheaper basic) machines. Plus I read another feature is a 'stay clean drawer' powerful strategic jets aim precisely to clean the soap drawer apparently - so as a test I spilt some detergent on the top surface of the drawer ..... its still there lying on top after about 5 washes I have done now . 

the blurb says auto doses detergent automatically so you   get the right amount of detergent in every wash ... nope, fair enough it weighs the clothes at the beginning but I would not say it puts the right amount of detergent in every time, there will be times where theres a bit too much detergent added so theres loads of suds, and there is sometimes visible no suds at all in the wash . - I mean without emptying some of the water and sampling / anylising how dirty the water is how would it know that more detergent needs adding throughout the wash - and to add insult to injury its an autodose washing machine that apparently works out the correct dose for your wash but you have a setting in menu to choose low/med/hi detergent setting for the wash ... well if thats the case your actually selecting the dosage yourself then and the washing machine isn't! 

 

[andyr12345]

here's another question for you Andy re ecobubble feature seeing as you are the man who knows his stuff you might be able to answer me, you know the ecobubble supposedly mixes water detergent and air together to apparently lift and dissolve stains better than if you didn't have the ecobubble feature - well when the drum is agitating anyway would that agitation not be already mixing the detergent & water and air  altogether anyway? (or rather mix the detergent and water, and because its liquid detergent anyway its going to dissolve better than powder anyway?) so in that case it then makes the ecobubble 'thing' redundant then doesnt it? just another part ('pump') to go wrong and make machine make more noise whilst its washing and pumping? 

 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

12 hours ago, andyr12345 said:

here's another question for you Andy re ecobubble feature seeing as you are the man who knows his stuff you might be able to answer me, you know the ecobubble supposedly mixes water detergent and air together to apparently lift and dissolve stains better than if you didn't have the ecobubble feature - well when the drum is agitating anyway would that agitation not be already mixing the detergent & water and air  altogether anyway? (or rather mix the detergent and water, and because its liquid detergent anyway its going to dissolve better than powder anyway?) so in that case it then makes the ecobubble 'thing' redundant then doesnt it? just another part ('pump') to go wrong and make machine make more noise whilst its washing and pumping? 

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. No doubt they will have some technical explanation that shows it increases the amount of air, but plenty of washing machines wash equally as well or even better without bubbles. Which is why I think it's unnecessary. 

However, do they claim the bubbles system means you use less detergent or allows quicker washing?  That would be different if the bubbles saved money or time. 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

14 hours ago, andyr12345 said:

and to add insult to injury its an autodose washing machine that apparently works out the correct dose for your wash but you have a setting in menu to choose low/med/hi detergent setting for the wash ... well if thats the case your actually selecting the dosage yourself then and the washing machine isn't! 

Yes that's ridiculous. How can it automatically decide what dose is needed if you can interfere with its calculation by selecting low medium or high? 

The only way that would make any sense is the fact that water hardness varies across the UK. And water hardness does determine the dose required. 

So, the washing machine cannot do autodosing properly unless it knows whether the water it is using is soft, medium, or hard. This information is vital! 

If it is explained in the manual that the settings you can choose from are directly related to your water hardness that is good, and makes sense. It should be a one off setting.

But if it's presented to you as an arbitrary choice, that's bad.

Any appliance that automatically doses detergent should have a setup setting, which tells the machine to adjust its detergent levels for the level of water hardness. This is what dishwashers do.  

[andyr12345]

2 hours ago, Whitegoodshelp (Andy) said:

Yes that's ridiculous. How can it automatically decide what dose is needed if you can interfere with its calculation by selecting low medium or high? 

The only way that would make any sense is the fact that water hardness varies across the UK. And water hardness does determine the dose required. 

So, the washing machine cannot do autodosing properly unless it knows whether the water it is using is soft, medium, or hard. This information is vital! 

If it is explained in the manual that the settings you can choose from are directly related to your water hardness that is good, and makes sense. It should be a one off setting.

But if it's presented to you as an arbitrary choice, that's bad.

Any appliance that automatically doses detergent should have a setup setting, which tells the machine to adjust its detergent levels for the level of water hardness. This is what dishwashers do.  

yep its got a hardness setting (hard/med/soft) too Andy, meant to be a set and forget, but there is no salt generator like a dishwasher so I presume that must adjust the detergent in some way - add more detergent if you had selected 'hard' in the water setting. 

But then you have the detergent dose per wash (low/med/high/off)
and then a softener dose per wash (low/med/high/off) 
Which I had just found out yesterday after all this time of having the machine that before each wash you have to (apparently) set the level to the type of wash you are doing... so heavy soil you are supposed to adjust the dose per wash to high - so the actual washing machine does not measure out the correct amount od dosage like when i read the leaflet and the internet specs and their advertising saying it measures out the correct dose for every wash  ... instead you still have to adjust the dose thing yourself ... before every wash apparently! - not so smart after all! 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Plus they make loads of money from detergent

[andyr12345]

curiosity got the better of me today ... I wanted to look at this marvel that is 'The Samsung Eco Bubble Generator' 
If you look at Samsung's marketing and video's this is how their wonderful ecobubble system is supposed to work on their range of ecobubble washing machines : 




Here is a video explanation of how it is all supposed to work, very techincal system, mixing air/soap detergent and water to provide lovely aerated bubbles to dissolve and lift stains from your laundry: 
https://youtu.be/UD1nbWLk_wI 



- so I have taken the front off the cabinet. 

So guess what , there is no magic bubble generator, cannot say I am surprised. 




all it is , is a separate recirculating pump attached to the side of the drain pump,






the water travels down the sump hose, to the recirculation pump and then (must) take the dirty water from the sump and just recirculate it up into the bottom of the drum again , just recirculating dirty soapy water , i doubt if there is any kind of filter (apart from the drain filter) to filter it and pump fresh clean water back into the bottom of the drum . 

What a complete and utter con at the end of the day!

 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Hi Andy. If you look carefully, there is a "disclaimer" at bottom right, which is designed to be extremely hard to read. I see them all the time on many tv ads.  The technique they use is to use a text colour that is very similar to the background colour.

They then use a drop shadow effect and instead of using a contrasting colour, which is what a drop shaddow needs, they again use virtually the same colour.

The effect is a hardly noticeable text, that just looks blurred and out of focus. Even with a screen capture and zooming right in it's hard to read. 
 

I can just make out that the claim is made using an "internal bench test", and the water temperature's only 15 degrees. Essentially the claim is the the detergent bubbles penetrate the fabric much quicker - but presumably only at 15 degrees. 

I can't help thinking that its just a technically true claim that in real world makes little difference. Otherwise, their washing machines would wash much better than the rest and much quicker. I'm not in a position to say if that is the case or not but it does all seem a bit fanciful and gimmicky. 

Another issue I have is that soap sudds don't help washing. If too much they cushion laundry from each other and they need to rub against each other?
 

My understanding is that soap sudds are added purely because customerslike and expect them. There was some laundry detergent that didn't use any sudds and consumers didn't like it.  I only have anecdotal evidence about that. Its something I was told but haven't researched. 

I am happy to shout about it if I can be proved wrong though. 

 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Having said all that, if Samsung are only claiming this system is much faster when washing at low temperatures - especially 20 degrees then fair enough.