[rsynnott]

> I kind liked washing machines that properly heated to 90C

Your washing machine is likely defective. Nothing about the rules makes this particularly difficult and modern machines with good energy ratings can do it (though, mind you, you'll notice if you read the small print that the energy rating is pretty much just for the mode they expect people to use; the 90 degree mode will use quite a lot of power).

> vacuum cleaners that actually picked up dirt

Your vacuum cleaner is definitely defective. At best, the functional advantage provided by super-high-wattage machines over ~1kW ones was marginal and hard to measure, in many cases it was non-existent. Super-high wattage vacuum cleaners were primarily a marketing thing; 1600 is a better number than 1400 so people buy the 1600.

(Note that appliance manufacturers continue to do that where allowed; most washing machine manufacturers perform market segregation on 1200 vs 1400 vs 1600 rpm spin, for instance, even though once you go over a 1000 or so improvement is very marginal, and your machine will likely never actually reach the sticker rate anyway due to damage protection system)

> And these newer machines feature more plastic parts, are harder to repair and generally considered disposable

You're talking about two separate issues. Cheap shit washing machines existed both before and after the regulations. You can still get a washing machine with longevity similar to 70s/80s models (Miele in particular makes these) but it'll be expensive. As it was in the 80s; look at the inflation-adjusted costs.

[silvestrov]

I think it would better if the EU had required listing the "sucking power" of vacuum cleaner in addition to the power usage, and require this number to be in bigger font size than power usage.

And require "suckage per watt" also.

People went by power usage because that was the only measure they got.

[rsynnott]

There's no metric for that that's well understood by the public, though. People have been trained that more watts == more better over the last century by lightbulbs and things (and more dubiously by hifi makers; they tend to use very dubious marketing watts). Air watts (ie power of air movement) might have been a good compromise; most super-high wattage machines don't have substantially better air watts metrics. It still isn't that helpful to the consumer, though; a poorly designed machine may have high air watts but limited suction.

[silvestrov]

People can be taught.

Example of typical packaging of LED bulb in Denmark: https://imgur.com/a/J5PiGLb

It has: actual watt usage, "old watt equivalent" and lumen. It won't take that many years before people know the lumen value they want.

[nitrogen]

Inches of water column were directly demonstrated by the last door to door vacuum sales pitch I saw, as a measure of suction. CFM are a perfectly comparable measure of airflow. And an abstract "cleaning power" could be defined for various surfaces by putting a standardized dirt load on the surface and weighing what percentage remains after a standardized sweep.

[foobar4567]

The EU did introduce a label with information about cleaning power and noise, in addition to energy use.

However, these were removed following a court ruling in favour of Dyson, which complained that the cleaning power tests were not realistic, as they were always conducted with an empty bag.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/11/dyson-wins-eu-vacuum-ap...

[hvidgaard]

Miele is not what it used to be unfortunately. There was a technician somewhere on here or Reddit that elaborated quite a bit on it. His general advice was that for now, Bocsh makes some decent machines that last longer than average and is serviceable.

[Mirioron]

The cheap machines before might've been less efficient, but they generally at least did the job adequately. That's not always the case when the power rating is limited.

Consider that these rules apply to countries with very different economies. People in Bulgaria have an average income of $9,000 a year compared to $54,000 in Germany. They have access to the same vacuum cleaners and washing machines, but they can't afford the same ones.

[rasz]

The problem is artificial market segmentation, not actual goods build cost.

Difference between primitive universal motor + Triac speed controller versus BLDC + controller one is max around $20 BOM. In return you get vastly better efficiency and quieter operation, but we cant have that in a low end product oh no, how would we upmarket the expensive ones?

Example modern product sold with realistic markup, $30 impact driver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AERn5japFs8

[rsynnott]

> but they generally at least did the job adequately

Did they, tho? That's not my memory of cheap 90s/noughties era washing machines, at all. If you go back much further than that, cheap machines didn't exist; adjust the price of a basic 80s washing machine for inflation and you're looking at something that's more than most people would pay for a washing machine today.

EDIT: One thing that the 90s cheap machines were better on was noise, though. It's not that the modern ones are _louder_; I think they're actually lower decibels. But the motors, especially the pump motors, in the newer ones make a much more _annoying_ noise.

[C1sc0cat]

What was ignored that having a 1600w vs 1000w means you can run the 1600w at a lower load for the same suckage which extends the product life.

[rsynnott]

I'm not sure that that's true in a vacuum, and in any case most of the super-high-wattage vacuum cleaners didn't have controls for that (maybe very high-end ones did?)

EDIT: Just noticed the accidental pun; by true in a vacuum I mean true without extra information, not true in a vacuum cleaner :)

[C1sc0cat]

I think many have controls and you could always set it to 80%.

This is a bit like having better VRM's and cooling improves the life of CPU's.