This is the Bosch Integra Vision Fully Integrated Dishwasher, retail price $1749.99. It looks like this (see right):
Two of these are elegantly and unobtrusively installed in the expensive vacation house that we are renting this week, and they are lovely, simple, and so quiet that their operating cycle is totally imperceptable. And you barely notice them, because the fronts are completely clean of unsightly controls, lights, labels, and buttons. You can control every aspect of the dishwasher from the top edge of the door, like this: 
Unfortunately, they are completely impossible to use. First, the "clean" light (which of course you can't see without opening the dishwasher) is always illuminated, even after the dishwasher has been emptied and refilled, so in practice it doesn't mean anything. You can reset the "clean" light, but that causes the dishwasher to start running again as soon as you latch it (which is easy to do by accident). But of course you can't know that, because the sound-proofing makes the dishwasher completely silent, so you don't realize it until the next time you open the dishwasher and see that your clean dishes are now (a) 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and (b) covered in soap. If you weren't the one to start the dishwasher, the sound-proofing also makes it impossible to tell where the washer is in its cycle, so if you open it to look at the lights, you may or may not have your hand scalded by super-heated steam. Even if you can somehow manage not to be burned, opening the dishwasher causes it to restart its duty cycle, using more water and making your dishes still dirty by dinner time when you need them again. To date our best solution to this problem is to indicate the running status of the dishwasher by simply taping it shut, like so: 
Truly, ingenious industrial design at its finest. |
We were _very_ tempted by that dishwasher because Joseph wouldn't be able to get to the buttons, but then we realized it would sort of be impossible, so we go the one with the buttons on the front. It _would_ be impossible to know when the dishes were done without the little timer countdown. I'm surprised they didn't just put some sort of indicator on the front. That could be done without destroying the aesthetic of it.
Posted by: Darcy at June 27, 2006 01:58 PMYeah, it definitely didn't seem to be thought through particularly.
BTW, you might think that I'm brashly judging this appliance after barely a few days of experience, but in fact I lived with one of these things for over a year. And I assure you, it has all the same problems.
PLUS, when it malfunctions (which is quite frequent) you pretty much have to cut the flow of AC power to the device (by pulling it out and away from the wall, if needed) to get it to reset, once it has lost its little mind.
Posted by: Rus at June 27, 2006 06:01 PMWhen they have them on showroom floors at the fancy appliance stores they always have them mounted in such a way that it doesn't seem so unusable, but I wasn't fooled.
Ours hasn't had to be reset yet, but, fortunately, it would be easy to cut power to it without moving it.