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EDIT: I've been told that this question is a rant, so here is a TL;DR:

I want to program my washing machine in the low-level sense, e.g. I want to set all the parameters of the washing cycle (amount of water, temperature, intensity of tumbling, duration of the cycle). Do you know any product on the market that allows this?

Longer version:

For the past 4 years, after the birth of our child me and my wife gave up on our Candy washing machine, since we got the impression it was made to punish us, not to help us. (we used disposable diapers, so diapers are not an issue, everything else is). The arrival of the child was only the latest straw, we were generally unhappy with washing machines for 10 years before.

More specific:

  1. they wash for too long. I am sorry, but don't have 4 hours to wash 4 kilos of laundry
  2. too little water (which may be connected to the previous one). I am horrified that the machine is savagely beating the laundry in a small puddle of putrid water. Science of washing or not, I don't want my clothes to be washed and destroyed that way. It does cause the textile to wear out more quickly and I am angry about this.
  3. "punishment" mentality of the washing program. Adding more water (yes there is button for that) increases cycle time up to a 20 minuts. It is almost as the designers would want me to suffer for using more water.

So right now, and for the past 4 years, we are making bi-weekly trips to the public laundry (with 40kg+ of laundry), where Speed Queen machines wash the laundry in 40 minutes, and they do it with plenty of water. My Candy washing machine is mainly not used. I live in EU, so laundromats are not nearly as ubiquitous as in US, so "trip" means the trip across the town, not down the block.

I was talking to other uses of the laundry about this and the feeling is frequent among people using these public laundries - most of them have washing machines at home, but they just gave up. Many people that don't use public laundries are angry about this as well, but there seem to be no other choice for the home appliances.

Also note that I am an engineer by trade (I know math) and I pretty much understand that any savings in water and electricity machine makes by torturing our laundry are totally nonsensically small in relation to overall use of water/electricity in the household (more water per day is used to flush my urine down the toilet than during one washing cycle).

So I explicitly don't care about energy efficiency labels. I would gladly buy an "E" or "F" based one, if it would behave more reasonably.

So my question is: short of buying one of the industrial/laundromat beasts made by SpeedQueen, is there ANY machine of the market which would allow me to set up MY program. I don't meean "fully programmable" machines sold by Samsung which have wifi, and bluetooth and whatnot... I don't need to know when the machine is done, I want to be done quickly. Not need to be 40 minutes, but the laundry should be done in one hour, and SpeedQueen machines indeed show that this is possible.

I would like to set duration of the cycle (in minutes), amount of water used for washing and rinsing, temperature of the water for washing and rinsing, intensity (speed and frequency) of tumbling and so on. Fine grained control which would allow me to optimize my cycle the way I like.

I am flabbergasted that basically in any industry the companies are struggling to please the customers, but in home appliance business that focus has been lost. My grandmother in 80ties had a washing machine that needed 2 hours to wash the laundry. Now I have to suffer 4 hours? Really?

EDIT2: I found the commercial machine on the Alibaba, that advertises exactly this functionality. It seems to be the closest what is available right now:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Front-load-fully-programmable-industrial-50kg_60387387819.html

The smallest one they sell is for 15 kg loads. Provides USB port for PC programming.

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  • How about this one for being fully programmable. I don' think there's a single feature which you don't decide for yourself ... ;) – brhans Jan 21 '18 at 14:37
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    This question is two things, a shopping question and a rant, neither are on-topic. – Tyson Jan 21 '18 at 14:57
  • @brhans Very funny. I am still waiting for some real suggestions. – xmp125a Jan 21 '18 at 17:29
  • @Tyson I believed the question needed some background. Because there are machines out there marketed as "programmable" and imagined the response will be "why on earth would you want to do that". Anyway, I edited the question so now the core is in the first paragraph. – xmp125a Jan 21 '18 at 17:41
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    It's still a rant, and a shopping question. VTC. Try a rock in a stream (or a laundry sink) for a while. The only way you are going to get the thing you claim you want is to build it (probably starting from some other washing machine, but I guess that depends just how tightly-wound you are on the subject. You might need to start with mining your own ore and smelting the metal...) – Ecnerwal Jan 21 '18 at 17:42
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Yes, you want the SDLAtlas Vortex M6.

SDLAtlas Vortex M6 Washing Machine

(Manufacturer photo)

Supplied with a controller that can dictate custom settings for:
-Bath Temperature (Custom Controls)
-Water Fill (Custom Controls)
-Agitation (Speed & Time)
-Spin (Speed & Time)
Custom programs can be saved for late use

Or if you want a European-style front-loader, the James Heal/Electrolux Wascator will fit your needs.

James Heal Wascator

(Mfg photo)

These are designed to test fabrics and laundry detergent formulations in a lab, so unfortunately I suspect you will find it cheaper to buy new clothes every few months than to acquire thesee.

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  • I marked this as accepted answer since it kind of suggests that there are no consumer versions of such machines on the market. So the best bet would be to try to find the smallest and the cheapest commercial-grade washing machine. – xmp125a Jan 23 '18 at 6:08

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