The Fisher and Paykel Aquasmart washer: a washing machine ahead of its time or a prototype pretending to be the finished product? (A review of the Fisher and Paykel Aquasmart washing machine)

Machine type: High efficiency top loader, capacity 7kg

Australian models:

8kg WL80T65CW1
7kg WL70T60CW1

US models:

3.7 cu ft WL37T26CW2
4.2 cu ft WL42T26CW1
4.2 cu ft WL42T26DW1 
4.2 cu ft WL42T26DW1 
4.2 cu ft WL42T26KW1 

Before we start, it's important to understand that this machine works differently
from other top loaders. The fact that you must use High efficiency or front loading low
sudsing detergent should alert you to this fact. The machine uses about the
same amount of water per wash as a front loader, although for some cycles such
as delicate items, it uses a full load of water. You can also choose to
manually override the Aquasmart (low water setting) and force the machine to use a conventional wash.

You’ll also notice that there’s no agitator – highly unusual for a top loading washer. The clothes are washed by gently tossing them over in the bowl, rather than around the agitator.

Washing modes

On the LCD model, there’s a mind boggling number of washing modes, ranging from a regular wash to a shoes wash mode. Yes, shoes. Among the so called “Lifestyle Cycles”, there are also separate wash modes for chocolate, blood, tomato, grass, fruit and wine. In the Sport section, there are modes for sweaty, muddy, sports shoes and beach gear. This is just scratching the surface – there are many more cycles, for almost every imaginable washing situation. Are they just a marketing gimmick, or do they actually work? According to the instruction manual,

“These cycles have been specifically designed by our washing experts, with you in mind.

We have incorporated 70 years of washing knowledge into 19 easy to use, preprogrammed wash

cycles. This allows you to let the washer deal with some of the more tricky washing situations

you may encounter, ensuring that you get the same results as a washing expert, without having

to be one.”

Hmmm. I think that as with any stain, if you treat it quickly by hand first, and then wash it, the machine will do its job. Don’t expect it to remove a two day old food stain though.

User interface

Backlit LCD screen is easy to read

The machine has an LCD display screen with buttons to set your washing program. The LCD is backlit, which is great in low light, but strangely the buttons aren’t backlit. It would have been nice to have both. The button panel is placed to the right of the display, and it’s a little awkward to use, as you have to look back at the display to make sure you’ve made the right selections. I feel that it would have been better located under the display. Sometimes I find myself touching the screen, which has large, bright, pulsating icons, almost inviting you to touch them – maybe the next model will add a touchscreen.

Each button press is signalled by a beep, but you can turn this off if you wish. The end of wash cycle can also be set to beep – 5 or 15 times. Personally, I think five beeps is too little and 15 too many. Why not 10?

The machine's lint removal system means that you MUST separate lint givers (fleecy items such as track pants) from lint receivers (for example, cotton t shirts), and it is very fussy about this, especially in regard to black or
dark coloured clothing. For example, if you wash a pair of black fleecy track pants with a dark blue t shirt, the chances are pretty good that the t shirt will be covered in lint. However, if you wash your fleecy lint givers separately from your t shirts, you  generally won't have a problem. This takes some adjustment if you’re used to throwing everything in together! There’s no lint trap at all in the machine, and F&P claims that lint is extracted and removed with the grey water during the wash. Not if you wash the wrong types of clothes together though!

Powder or liquid detergent?

Use a good quality liquid detergent
for best results

Even when using good quality powder detergent (the same brand included as a sample when I bought the machine, Cussons Radiant powder), I’ve found that when using a high efficiency wash in combination with dark colored clothing can cause powder residue to be left on the clothes after a wash. There are 2 solutions to this problem – use the conventional wash mode, or use a good quality liquid detergent.

Conventional wash – This seems to be the go to mode when the High Efficiency mode doesn’t produce good results. It adds more water, but not as much as a conventional top loader, so in theory you’re still saving water! Using a liquid detergent seems to go a long way to reducing any residue problems you might have with powder detergents.

There is also an “aqua plus” mode, which adds more water to the rinse cycle in high efficiency mode. I have set this to “on” permanently, so that the lint/residue problems are minimised. The operating manual also suggests as much:

“Activating this option adds additional water to the Aqua rinse in a High

Efficiency wash cycle. This will give you a little extra rinsing for those with

sensitive skin. You can also use this option if you tend to wash lot of dark

garments.”

Most settings can be customised in this way. For example, you can set the spin speed to medium or slow by default if you don’t like a fast spin. You can also change the default temperature of cold, warm and hot washes. Washing “hints” are also turned on by default, and can be turned off when you are used to the machine.

Get used to seeing this message

When washing items that can become very heavy when wet, such as large sheets or quilt covers, the machine sometimes goes out of balance when spinning and stops. Although it comes with an automatic out of balance correction feature which adds extra water to attempt to float the load if this happens, this feature is turned off by default! I would strongly suggest that you turn this on in order to minimise this problem. I say minimise, because it doesn’t eliminate the issue. There have been times when I’ve come home after leaving a wash and heard the dreaded F&P alert tone. This means that the machine has tried, but failed to redistribute the load, so you have to do it manually and try again – and again sometimes! This gets annoying quickly.

What’s the reason for it happening? It seems that the lack of an agitator has something to do with it. Because the sheet is tossed over itself, it can end up in the shape of a ball – a large, heavy ball. This thumps around inside the washing compartment, and causes the machine to go out of balance. It’s not unusual for the whole machine to have moved from its original position during this process, and the noise can be disconcerting at first!

Even with a small load there can
be out of balance issues

I would go as far as saying that this is a design fault, and that you should be aware that if you buy this machine, you’re going to run into the out of balance problem at some point. It doesn’t happen with every load, but just make sure you flatten large sheets and quilts when you put them into the machine. Don’t just jam them in, and follow the instruction book when determining how many you should wash in one load. In my 7kg machine, one king size, or two queen size sheets is about the limit, or one king/queen size quilt. If the load works itself into a ball, it’s almost certain that you’re going to hear that dreaded alert tone at some stage.

You have to give FP credit for attempting to introduce a completely new type of washer, but in practice, the concept doesn’t quite come together. I’m used to throwing everything into the machine, pushing a button or two, and walking away. You just can’t do that with the Aquasmart. You have to think about what you’re doing. Can I wash this with that, should I use a slower spin speed, oh yeah, it’s a sheet, I have to unfurl it first. Being more than slightly geeky, I like to tinker to find the right settings for each type of load. But I understand that most people don’t want to do this. My wife, for instance. She just gives me the load and says “here, you do it”. Get used to hearing that if you buy this machine! It works quite well, but requires some effort on your part. You must read the manual, and you must be prepared to experiment with its settings until the wash is to your satisfaction.

Agree…disagree with this review? Have something to add? Feel free to comment!

Blu-ray region coding and the legacy of HD DVD

While I’m not going to launch in to a rant about HD DVD’s demise, one clear advantage it had over Blu-ray for those living outside the US was its region free approach. You could buy an HD DVD from anywhere and have complete confidence that it would work in your HD DVD player.

The same can’t be said of Blu-ray discs, which are often region coded. Admittedly, the Blu-ray Disc association has rationalised its regions – there are now only 3 regions, compared with 8 for DVDs.

As the Blu-ray vs HD DVD war was coming to an end, I wondered to myself whether the HD DVD aligned studios, namely Universal, Paramount/Dreamworks, Weinstein as well as the format neutral Warner Bros and Magnolia Studios would continue to release Blu-ray discs without region locking. As they’d undertaken to release discs with no region coding on HD DVD, why should their stance change?

For the most part, it hasn’t. For those looking to buy their Blu-rays from the US, it’s a safe bet that any Universal, Magnolia or Warner title you buy will be region free.

Paramount’s a different story however. While the majority of Paramount’s titles are region free, some of their new premium releases (Sapphire Series), and TV series are region A locked. These include:

• Braveheart
• CSI (Season 1)
• Dexter (Seasons 2-4) (a shame, frankly, as these aren't yet available in other regions)
• Gladiator
• Paranormal Activity

Dreamworks has one locked title, Minority Report.

Weinstein has also locked a few of their titles:

• Halloween (2007)
• Hell Ride
• Lucky Number Slevin

As for the studios which backed Blu-ray from the beginning, it’s reasonable to assume that one of the reasons they backed Blu-ray was so that they could region lock their titles.

The major studios in this camp included:

• Buena Vista (Disney)
• Disney
• 20th Century Fox
• HBO
• Lionsgate
• New Line
• Sony

Most of the studios in this group region lock the majority of their titles, but there are some exceptions. Disney is particularly fussy about region locking its animated classic titles such as Show White, Dumbo, Pinocchio and the like, which it releases once every ten years.

As for the other studios, most titles are region locked, but some aren’t. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern. Fox locked all of its titles until last year, when all of a sudden, a slew of region free titles has been released. Go figure.

If you’re unsure whether a title is region locked, you could check one of the many sites on the web which list the region status of Blu-ray titles.

I’ve found that the most reliable and current is liesinc. Or you can support the studios that support region free, and buy exclusively Universal and Warner titles (with the occasional Paramount movie, but not TV series(!), thrown in).

Gixen - a free Ebay sniping service

Have you ever wondered how you got beaten at the last second (literally) in an Ebay auction? How did that person get in so quickly, and at 3 o'clock in the morning?


The answer is that they're using a sniper service. There are many on the web, most of which you have to pay to use. There is a great free service however, and it's callen Gixen. To use it, simply log in using your Ebay username and password, type in the item number of the goods you want to bid on and your maximum bid, and then sit back and wait for the good news!

Gixen will place your maximum bid within 5 seconds of the end of the auction. Of course, you still might not win, but if your bid is the highest, it is almost impossible for someone to manually place a higher bid. Your chances of winning are therefore greatly increased.

Gixen is a great free service, and is very reliable. For a fee of US$6 per year, you can have the added peace of mind of using Gixen's mirror service, which ensures that your bid is placed in the event that Gixen's main server is down. Other features of the mirror service include:

• 100% reliability guarantee
  
• No ads
  
• Wider choice of snipe time choices (3,6,8,10,12 and 15 seconds).
  
• Auction end times refreshed hourly, as opposed to daily.
  
• Gixen Desktop Manager - schedule and monitor your snipes from your Windows desktop
  

For US$6 per year, that's a bargain. Of course, you can use the basic service absolutely free, no catches. Gixen is highly recommended.

Panasonic ES8243 Linear Shaver long term review

Features:

• Linear Shaver (13000 rpm)
• Universal charging (100-240 V)
• Li-ion battery
• Waterproof for wet or dry shaving
• Turbo cleaning
• Time elapsed/battery remaining indicator (LCD)
• 4 blades on foil

ES8243 in blue
LCD displays elapsed time

The shaving performance of the Panasonic ES8243 is great for an 
electric shaver. I've used electrics for over 20 years, and have tried most brands (Philips/Norelco, Braun, Remington) and this shaver is better than those in every way. I've been using it for about 15 months, and here are my impressions on its performance.


The linear motor, which moves back and forth at 13000 rpm is the secret to the shaver's effectiveness. It is simply faster than any other shaver on the market. Shaving is very close, although you might need a few passes to achieve best results. It's worth reading and following the instructions - you must hold the shaver at 90 degrees to the skin, and you should stretch the skin with your free hand to get the closest shave. This is particularly true in the difficult neck and chin areas. No other electric I've tried (with the possible exception of my recently replaced Panasonic ES8095) shaves as close in these areas. I can run my fingers across my chin/down my neck and feel only smooth skin - no stray hairs. Amazing!


I tried rubbing a few drops of King of Shaves shaving oil into my skin before shaving, and this definitely helps reduce friction during a dry shave and therefore reduces the dreaded "razor burn".
I've recently been using their Kinexium product, and this is even more slippery than the original KOS product!
It reduces friction to almost zero and helps prevent razor burn, especially on and around the adam's apple.

I've only tried "wet" shaving twice, and it was a bit slow for my liking. It works fine, but you'll need plenty of time. A "fog free" mirror in the shower would be great for this.

If you haven't used an electric shaver before, or you are switching from another brand of electric shaver, you must give your skin 30 days or so to adjust to the shaver. As the note included with the shaver pleads: "Please stick with it. It's worth it." I couldn't agree more.


The cleaning mode on this shaver is simple, effective and ingenious. I had a good look at the latest Brauns before buying this, and was initially impressed with their docking station cleaning method. Then it occurred to me, do I want to lug all this gear around with me when I'm travelling, or when I go on holidays? And how much does it cost to replace the cleaning solution?
The answers were NO, and A LOT!

With the Panasonic, you just squirt some liquid soap (or even shampoo) onto the outer foil, hold down the "on" button for 2 seconds to engage the "turbo cleaning mode" and hold it under a running tap for 20 seconds. The result - a clean, fresh smelling shaver all the time. It makes the Braun cleaning system (and that found on Panasonic's own ES8249) seem like overkill.


The shaver is not perfect however. Battery life is not fantastic - Panasonic claims a charge will last for 15 shaves (@ 3 minutes each). That might be true if you can shave in 3 minutes - I find that 5 minutes is about right for a close shave. You get about 7 shaves at this rate. This doesn't present a problem if you leave the shaver to charge when it's not in use. This is safe to do, and the battery cannot be overcharged (it's a lithium-ion battery).


The trimmer is only adequate, and is a bit too flimsy in my opinion. It does the job however.

The trimmer - it does the job

The ES8249 is an identical shaver to the ES8243, but it comes with a cleaning station. This may seem like a good idea, but you have to manually clean out the hairs from inside the shaver before cleaning, and the cleaning/drying process takes over 2 1/2 hours. The cleaning stage is also quite noisy, as the machine churns away on the shaver's blades and foil. You also have to use Panasonic's proprietry cleaning cartridges, which is yet another consumable to buy. Personally, I'd save the $100 extra the cleaning system costs and stick with the ES8243.

4 shaving heads. Well, 3 and a long hair trimmer

Panasonic advertises the ES8243 a a 4 blade shaver. This is partially true. There are 4 blade surfaces on the outer foil, but only 2 blades on the unit itself. A sprocket connects the blades to the indented middle foil, which moves when shaving. So, I guess you could give them the benefit of the doubt and say there are 3 blades. This isn't to say they're not effective, but how many blades do you really need?

The key to a smooth shave with this shaver is to run it lightly over your skin. There's a temptation to apply a bit of force, but try to resist otherwise you'll end up with some nasty razor burn. There's a lock switch on the side of the shaver which lets the entire head mechanism "float" so that you can't push hard. It's worth using this setting until you're used to the shaver.

To sum up - I think this is a great shaver, definitely the best electric model I've tried. The price in Australia is very steep - around $400.00 but it currently comes with a 60 day satisfaction guarantee, so if you find it's not for you, just send it back. Give it a try if you're in the market for a new electric shaver, what have you got to lose?

2 blades inside the outer foil

Getting more mileage from your Shure IEM foam sleeves

If you've got a pair of Shure SE series or older E series headphones, you'll know that the foam sleeves provide the best combination of comfort and isolation. Depending on your hygiene standards, you'll also realise that they get collect earwax quite quickly, and lose their "sponginess" as more wax accumulates.

Just throw them in with your wash!

The solution? Well, you could buy some more, but have you tried washing them? Seriously, just put them in a zippable washing bag, and throw them in with your delicates cycle. They'll come out rejuvenated and will be good for a few more months. Of course, they'll still wear out eventually, but you'll get more use out of them than you would have without washing.

Remember, just wash the sleeves, not the headphones!