[MrFoof]

This is the main reason.

The difference in the longevity of my clothes -- same exact articles, same brand, same material, thickness, size and stitching -- from switching from a "hotbox" dryer to condensation dryer was initially amazing. No more did cuffs and collars start to crack and fail, nor did my shirts slowly develop small tears.

The latest (2014 is when they really started to hit the market) heat pump dryers dry clothes even cooler still, albeit since they're new tech they're quite a bit more expensive right now.

In Europe, a "condensation dryer" is so common, they're just called a "dryer", with no differentiating term. Additionally some countries (Switzerland I think) I believe don't even allow hotbox dryers anymore (and their needed conduit and vents) as part of fire/building code. Condensation dryers simply have a high quality lint filter (that truly does trap it all) and vent to atmosphere, since they just use a heat exchanger.

All while using far less electricity than simply heating things resistively.

[exprA]

TIL.

I don't think I've ever seen one of these hotbox driers in person, but gathered somewhere that those had existed earlier and saw them as fully obsolete technology used only in some industrial settings. The fact that they are still sold and installed (with all the requirements) in ordinary homes is very surprising.

(Hint: if you buy a condensation dryer, buy one with a drainage hose, if at all possible. Unless you are a very punctual person, you probably won't learn to empty the water storage after every cycle despite that all the manuals tell you to do so, because it can hold water from several cycles – but you will find yourself having unexpectedly wet laundry from time to time when you start drying with an almost full water tank and are not near when the machine tells it can't continue the program.)

[pimlottc]

You said the difference was "/initially/ amazing"; did something change later?

[MrFoof]

No. After 10 years of using them I've just been acclimated to not having my shirt collars and cuffs destroyed in the dryer.

[MBCook]

Could simply be habituation; where, like with HDTV, it's amazing at first but you get used to it and it simply becomes "the normal".

[pimlottc]

Possibly so; it just seemed like a conspicuously odd thing to add given they seemed to have no other complaints about it.

[sambe]

It varies by country. I'd think most in the UK consider "dryer" to mean heated dryer. I've found condensation dryers do a sub-par job and heated ones are fine on the low setting.

[sargun]

Do they use the cold side of the heat exchanger to drop the moisture out of the air prior to passing it back through for heating?

[yetihehe]

Yes, it works exactly this way. I don't have a clothes dryer, but I have condensing air demoisturizer (for places with too much moisture). Works fine when you need to dry some clothes in one room. Also costs MUCH less than full dryer. Air coming out is only a little hotter than room, but sometimes room gets colder due to evaporation from all textiles.

[sargun]

I've thought about buying an old 200mm or 230mm fan, and hooking it up to a Peltier cooler -- First pass the air over the "cold" side to drop out the moisture, then through some rechargeable desiccant, and then through the hot side to my clothes.

I wonder why dryers don't work this way, other than I think that it'd be much slower to dry as compared to a traditional dryer, and I'm not sure if you'd be able to wick the moisture out of ever fabric.

[yetihehe]

Why rechargeable dessicant when moisture just condenses on cold side? Then it drops into container. Also peltier cooler is too inefficient to do this. It uses about half of energy just for resistive heating. Typical european dryer works just like this but doesn't use dessicant.

[sargun]

Unless you drop the air temperature down to below 0, all the moisture won't drop out on the cold side.