I’m mainly interested in how clean it gets the dishes, and how reliable it is. I also don’t need or want any kind of internet-connected features.
If you can, try for one with a built-in water softener–that is, if your home has hard water. You’ll reload salt, as well as detergent.
Speaking of detergent, Technology Connections reference.
Buy powder detergent. Fill to the appropriate line. Save a crapton of money over time. Yes, I have autism, how could you tell?
I’d recommend Pavel. He has an excellent work ethic.
He’s a real straight-shooter for sure. Has upper kitchen management written all over him.
Miele, Asko, or Bosch in a pinch.
Some low end Bosch have in the past been Frigidaire or something dressed up as a Bosch. Keep an eye out for that.
I replaced my Miele (2001 build date) this year. The control panel was getting a little unreliable. It still was cleaning dishes (when it started).
Maybe in the US bosch is considered premium, but in Germany is the standard (BSH group, including bosch, Siemens, neff, etc). Their dishwashers are fine, but hard to say if better than others. But their support is awesome, you still can get replacement parts 20 years down the line, and do the repair yourself because they provide decent manuals and there’s tons of YouTube videos.
I like the IoT features, they’re so silent that it’s nice to get a notification when they are done, or start them when solar/cheap power is available.
I’ve heard good things about Miele, but don’t have any experience first hand.
I really like that my dishwasher has a window so I can peek inside while it’s working. Besides the coolness factor, it’s also useful to see whether any of the rotors are blocked from spinning or something tipped over.
It’s not a deal breaker if you get one without a window, but it’s really nice to have.
I’ve literally never seen of heard of a dishwasher that has this, what model do you have?
Very interesting arrangement of comments here.
As an appliance repair man for the last 21 years I can tell you that the only dishwasher worth getting is a Bosch. Nothing else even comes close. All thier other appliances are terrible but their dishwashers are simply the absolute best in the industry.
Having said that generally the state of appliances as a whole is pretty bad across the board which also includes Bosch dishwashers. The dishwashers they make today are worse than the ones they made 10, 15, 20 years ago. And people can tell.
But the truth of the matter is they’re still better than the competition. Ask any tech what they’d rather work on… GE dishwasher or a Bosch. It’s not the GE.
Do they have a model that has the macerating filter? The one I have now has a little basket that has to be cleaned constantly
So. Some whirlpool models have a blade inside the pump motor that can help cut down food debris.
The idea is that if one forgets to rinse off the dish before putting it in the dishwasher it’ll help move the debris along in the system.
The issue is course is that dishes need to be rinsed of large and even small elements of food. For every dishwasher. Not just Bosch.
Bottom line, if a manufacturer puts a blade into the pump that doesn’t mean you should stop rinsing your dishes off.
But! Even though whirlpool has this option a whirlpool dishwasher is significantly worse than a Bosch in everyway.
But to answer your question, yes. The very high end models of Bosch dishwashers will have a blade in the pump motor.
I’d look into the 500 or 800 series. They probably have the blade.
Wipe dishes off, don’t rinse them well before putting them in a dishwasher. They will get cleaner if they go in dirty (modern dishwashers keep going until the water is clean), and it saves water because the dishwasher is more efficient than washing them in the sink. Then clean the filter in the dishwasher after you use it.
My whirlpool gold has been quietly washing my dishes every day for the past 10 years without problems
My guess would be that whirlpool doesn’t build ‘em like that anymore
My old Bosch just died after being worked hard, and after a couple days being salty over it, I bought another Bosch. They’re quiet and do a great job.
Another vote for Bosch.
BTW, you know you’re old when you get excited about dishwasher features. I accept I’m old now.
If you can get a higher end 800 series, it has two really cool features: Crystal Dry and Eco mode
You know those silica desiccant pouches that get shipped in everything from our electronics to our beef jerky? Just by being exposed to air, the crystals absorb water. You can even reuse the crystals if you heat them and the water evaporates out. The Bosch 800 series has a large container of these type of crystals (Zeolite) in the back of the unit.
During the heating step, the container is opened allowing the hot moisture to escape. The container then closes, and the wet washing cycle begins. After the dishes are all clean, the container opens again, and the hot wet air inside the dishwasher is pushed through the desiccant container. Because its a closed system, all the water in the air and on the dishes is absorbed by the desiccant and they are bone dry ready to be put away! The desiccant lasts decades so its not like a wearable part.
This feature used to be only available on the high end Thermador Sapphire dishwashers costing a minimum of $2000. A few years ago Bosch allowed this feature in their high end models, the 800 series.
Another feature the 800 series has is “Eco mode”, which saves a lot of water and energy at the cost of a longer dishwasher cycle. Instead of using a 6 gallons of water and a huge amount of electricity to heat the water super hot (for most effective quick washing), it uses only 2.4 gallons of water and half the electricity not heating the water as much, but using that water for much longer cleaning to get the same cleaning in the end. A Eco cycle runs for about 2 hours (which the unit is crazy quiet too). The run time doesn’t bother me a bit because I usually start or schedule the dishwasher to run when I’m not in the kitchen anyway. Also yes, you can run Eco mode and have it finish with Crystal Dry.
Crystal Dry is the bomb.
Plastic comes out dry. 'Nuff said.
I echo this.
I went with a lower tier Bosch simply because it had a built-in water softener and that was my main priority. On hindsight I may have jumped for the 800 series.
The 3rd utensil tray becomes way more usable with the 800, and your stuff actually dries unlike in my model.
I will say I thought my old whirlpool that came with this house was well designed (more capacity and utensil tray being out of the way on the door was nice).
I’ve heard some features are locked behind an app on newer low end models. Higher end models hsvd enough buttons to do everything.
My dishwasher is doesn’t need WiFi access… Like, I have my washer and dryer hooked up because getting a reminder of loads being finished is great, but the dishwasher doesn’t need anything like that.
I got a Bosch a year ago and love it. Super quiet, super clean. But my favorite feature is that it cracks the door open after running so that every has a chance to air dry. I run it at night and when I wake up everything is fury dry, even plastic containers.
This is also useful as a visual cue for “the dishwasher is finished and needs to be unloaded”. My ADHD means that visual cues like this are super helpful
I would love this feature. I have an older bosch and it just beeps like every 10 minutes crying to be opened up.
My 5-year old Samsung does this as well. Blows fans for 5 mins too.
Same. Samsung, +/- 5 years old.
I highly recommend checking out this video regardless of what model you get:
I want to know the things this man seems to be an expert on and be an expert on them like him. I also feel like he would be fantastic at parties.
He’s my lowkey hero.
I really love how Technology Connections is just living his best life, being so iconically nerdy that he has masses of adoring fans, despite the topics he covers being so ostensibly dull. I remember scoffing when I first stumbled across him; I thought “a 40+ minute video on [boring stuff I didn’t care about] — who would watch that?”. I think I probably started watching it with the expectation that after a few moments my disdain would be validated, and I’d move on. As it happens, I was enchanted by the magic of “passionate nerd explains something in depth”.
Haha - yep, exactly! I started the first video like, “Meh, I’ll give it two minutes.” And ended like, “I need to watch ALL the things!”
Gonna make myself unpopular here. No to Bosch. Overpriced and overhyped. You pay a premium and get little in return. I installed my own and rather than just connecting the power to a standard electrical connection, you have to (or you have to pay someone) to wire in a proprietary electrical connection box. The dishwasher has a special cable that connects to their weird receptacle. No idea why, helps nothing, adds labor without benefit. Bosch dishwashers do not use heating coils to dry the dishes. They use the residual heat of the water to dry. My experience is that this is not very effective as well as slow. Some have a means to ventilate themselves (fans, mechanism to open door, etc). This helps, but adds complexity, failure points and is still slow. I gave up after my last (third one) Bosch would not clean nor dry properly after it was about four years old. Took it apart, cleaned crud out of pump and bottom end. Came to conclusion that the pump was no longer able to move water at a sufficient pressure to spray the dishes. Was more of a weak sprinkler effect. No idea why it would not dry. It never dried well from the beginning.
I have since switched to a whirlpool (kitchen aid) with a heating coil. One year in being run 2x a day and no issues so far. Dishes are clean and dry. Bought a simpler model without nonsense like wifi, apps, lights, floor projection or anything else. I run one setting: auto.The receptacle thing sounds like an attempt at vendor lock in.
Is a great minority take and I appreciate it thank you. Honestly, I’ve been using my parents Bosch for the last 15 months and I have not been impressed. Granted they have no clue about cleaning out the filter, and even though I informed them, they don’t remember such things. And the dishes are often left wet. Also, no one is mentioning what models they have just brands, so it’s kinda hard to make a determination since I have to assume many different models have many different features, and the guy in the YouTube video I just watched said rather than just having a basket filter some of them have an actual macerating filter that can chop stuff up and that sounds pretty appealing, but I have no idea which models have that. So I’m gonna try and figure that one out.
I got a Bosch last year, simple setup, no IoT bullshit, just works, quiet. For what it’s worth, the guy who installed it told me “I install new dishwashers and remove old ones in the process all the time. I’ve never had to remove a Bosch dishwasher”.
FWIW all Bosch dishwashers have IoT now, even the cheapest. You don’t need to use it, but at least it plays well with 3rd party stuff like Home Assistant.
Really, because I have a Bosch and I had to install the app and then use HACS to install an integration which goes through their cloud.
I don’t use that for anything more than alerts but it’s annoying it has zero local control. This is a perfect use case for Zigbee or Z-Wave and if I’m paying a premium I don’t get why I wouldn’t get premium features.
Also some features are app only (special dry modes etc) so if I want the functionality I paid for I have to be signed up for their cloud.
let’s hope they won’t just hop on an open wifi and do whatever, but hoping is the most we can do.
never had such a device, if it works with Hass (offline) that’s kind of good, but I wonder if they are hackable before connecting them to a network, because they run a hotspot or something
I love my 6 year old siemens dishwasher. I absolutely hate my tumbledryer from siemens though.
Get the most basic version with a metal interior. I haven’t tried many brands but my whirlpool is ok
Why a metal interior?
Holds up better, won’t crack or leak.
Quieter, too
I have an LG, ten years not a single issue, works well, quiet
I had to scroll really far to find this, but my LG was so good I bought another when I moved. My wife thought all dishwashers just sucked until she saw how well the LGs can do.
Surprised with how good the LG dishwasher and clothes washer have been. Will buy more of their appliances.
Our LG washer/dryer are about 15 years old now, still working incredibly well and look new. Definitely worth looking into
