Things in your life that suck the life blood out of you: white appliance content

Somehow the latest HP manages to print smoother from my phone than the PC!

because your phone isn’t running Windows 😃

Not white goods but where we’re staying just now has really unreliable internet (3 possible sources, all ropey) and it makes me sad every day. Son wants to watch Gigatosaurus? Better not do anything crazy like try to send a WhatsApp at the same time. Urgh.

We’re moving soon and getting FTTP. Phew.

I once owned a Moon washing machine. Lasted a fair few years with an easy life. I didn’t realise there were secondary functions with multiple button presses until late in its life so I didn’t use them.
I repaired a 2nd hand Samsung direct drive washing machine which had a blocked drain valve so the bearing had knackered. It lasted a few more years until the electronics started playing up and refusing to finish a cycle. I like the timer and how quiet it was compared to the moon.
Currently using a cheap beko washing machine annoyingly it doesn’t have a visible countdown timer and it won’t let me select higher than recommended spin speeds. The manual is open on the page which shows the times just so I can remember when to return to the washing to start the drying.

I bought a White Knight vented tumble dryer is great, it works well during the wet winter months.

Definitely any printer. These are the very droppings of the Devil. Why can’t they just do what they’re meant to?

I refer you to my post on the last page of the Mumsnet thread I linked earlier.

Actually yeah now you mention that I have seen it, but I left it on cos I thought it might be useful if you weren’t watching.

That’s what the person behind you is for, surely… 🙂

Currently using a cheap beko washing machine annoyingly it doesn’t have a visible countdown timer and it won’t let me select higher than recommended spin speeds

You can select spin speeds? Pffft.

The Beko washer that I’m using doesn’t have the option, but does at least show remaining time.

My biggest gripe is that it doesn’t beep when it’s finished.

I ask you.

@Cougar Not sure if I should thank you for the Mumsnet link! It’s hilarious, but I’ve spent ages reading it instead of doing something more constructive….

Why can’t they just do what they’re meant to?

My HP Envy 5640 has never done anything other than work perfectly every time since I’ve had it which must be 5-6 years. Ok, I lie, there’s been a couple of paper jams.

Couldn’t they just standardize around anything?

They have, it’s called web service printing. These days, printers are automatically discovered on your network and don’t need drivers. That’s how your phone is doing it.

because your phone isn’t running Windows 😃

Entirely possible.

It felt like just as printers finally became user-friendly and just about worked over USB. They made them Wi-Fi and now nothing works again.

The only other thing I’ve got that needs more bits of software to make it work, is a garmin which somehow needs 2 phone apps and 2 desktop ones and a browser plugin (but not the same on both). But at least once installed they mostly just work in the background, and since getting the phone versions they mostly don’t need to go anywhere near a pc.

@ads678

Apologies if you’ve already tried this but I’ve had three chromebooks and all have handled multiple separate logins including my daughter’s school account and relatives when they’ve visited. There’s never been a need to let them use my account.

https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1059242?hl=en

My Xerox laser printer alternates between printing pages of single lines of random text, or firing up and then flashing the red light. This is then ‘cured’ by opening and slamming the paper drawer _sometimes_. Other times it takes a computer reset or a reinstall of the printer driver. And then it sometimes works.

“UI on a Tesla is astonishingly good” – ours is white, so I’m sure that sounds as a white electrical good – but I’d argue that the UI was mostly designed by engineers who all got free upgrades to Magic Autopilot Plus or whatever, as many of the common commands, like ‘Switch on my heated seat’/Defrost screen/What’s my tyre pressure are only accessed via two or three presses of small buttons on a submenu. Fine if your passenger is doing it or if you’re not actually watching the road as the car is steering* but awful if you’re the driver.

(* Cruise control is great, apart from when it sees every fifth or so bridge, or if a lorry wanders anywhere near the dividing line, when it slams on the brakes…)

We have an LG washer/drier – I have mixed feelings about it.

I can’t really complain about its performance, but we’ve had it 6 years, and in that time I’ve had to have it to bits 3 times….. so that feels like a fail.

Once because getting even a small amount of sand in it (from say: beach towels which had been thoroughly shaken off) completely bunged-up the drain. Then again to replace the drain pump, which was relatively easy to replace, but still took an hour or so to pull the thing out, get the panels off etc.

The third one was odd: It doesn’t seem to have a lint filter thing, and I’ve wondered where it goes – I had written it off to being something to do with the fact its a “steam” model? But no! Turns out it has a complex network of large diameter venting tubes running thought it’s guts, which over the space of ohhhhh… 4-5 years get completely bunged up with lint, which eventually trigger an error code. The fix is (not kidding), to pull various body panels off, remove the internal fan and various bits of cowling, then manhandle the thing outside the back door, get a hosepipe and run water though it for about 30 mins to remove all the accumulated, baked-on lint. Took me a whole morning, and the kids learned some new words from Dad.

Yeah – so…. wouldn’t really recommend an LG.

We had a cheap as chips LG washing machine for over ten years. When it eventually died we inherited the same model, barely used from my in-laws. They bought it because we recommended it… they hated it!

…  I listened to one of the funniest phonecalls of my life when my f-in-law went all John Cleese to LG’s customer care line. I genuinely thought he was going to have a stroke. Went batshit mental at them because when it was on the fastest setting it basically has a fit and bounces all over the place (we don’t use that setting).

Only issue we’ve ever had was when I broke the door hinge by mistake. New one cost pennies, easy fix.

What went wrong with my life that i’m writing about washing machines in my lunch break?

Are Miele any good and worth the double cost of say a LG?

reeksy

What went wrong with my life that i’m writing about washing machines in my lunch break?

Because these things are used four times as much now I have kids and a wife, and ‘they suck the life-blood out of you when they just dont work as they should’…

I tried to order a new LG (same as the previous model we had years ago) from JL and they have messed the order up and cancelled it for no apparent reason. I give up…

We’re on our second Samsung washer/dryer. The first one lasted over 10 years, so when it died (I couldn’t be bothered fixing it) we just bought another one.
Towels & sheets take a bit more drying after the cycle, but I probably overload it.
Only issue is the drain pump needed a twiddle with a screw driver once.

Fitbits – they’re all ****. Never sync unless you do some or all of the following several times in different orders – disable/re enable Bluetooth, forget device, factory reset device, log out and back in again uninstall and reinstall the app, restart the Fitbit and the sync device.

Same issue with my DJI drone connection to its controller to update firmware/no fly zones. Never works, always completes and then says there is an update available next time you turn it on – ****.

My Heatmiser Smart heating system is on a targeted campaign to drive me insane. It is a cruel, calculated and effective adversary. It teases me into thinking it is compliant then, when I sleep thinking I have won, it will randomly turn the heating on in middle of the night. It frequently decides it is allergic to Wi-Fi networks so will refuse to even recognise they exist. Its app works in partnership with the hardware to frequently just stop working requiring a complete start from scratch with new set up process. If I dare to leave it alone for a few days, it will sulk into a shut down so I cannot remotely warm the house up prior to coming home.

It is a proper bastard.

Bosch whitegoods = problem solved. Sensible buttons, useful program selections, in general “just work”.

I’m slowly replacing our entire set of whitegoods with Bosch… I can’t afford Miele.

Does the push button on a loo count?

Like the toilets at work – I don’t go to the office more than twice a week these days, but I still recon I lose a day a month trying to flush those things

After working for GE (white goods) I only buy Bosch

Modern business practices – there seems to be two ways being taught at Universities…

• The run it smoothly and efficiently model.

• The run it so shit that every transaction/interaction means the customer will have to completely lose their shit before anything happens.

…the latter one is prevalent at the minute (and the courses are probably cheaper to run).

Anything made by Hotpoint.

I have a bush TV that randomly freezes if you confuse it by pressing two buttons within 10 seconds.

Worse is the radio in the kitchen, uses the internet, only the BBC are changing the protocol for streaming so the radio is now obsolete! Can’t use the ariel as we seem to be in a DAB black hole and have no signal inside.

Washing machine seems to have a random start button sequence every time you use it as well.

Oh and touch screens in cars!? Who thought of that? No tactile feedback so you have to look at the screen to use.

Mumsnet has a ‘classics’ thread on this. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_classics/3058228-household-objects-that-are-pricks (warning, it’s very sweary)

I had to stop reading that thread cos I’m on a train and was laughing so much.