Washers and dryers aren’t normally the sexiest pieces of tech in your house, but they’re items that every household needs, and as appliances enter into the smart age, Samsung has dialed it up to 11 with its new BESPOKE AI Heat Pump combo.
This is a super sleek unit that comes in a super premium grey as well as a 7-inch touch screen that we’ll get into shortly. As far as capacity goes, it can wash at 18.5kg load and comfortably dry a 10kg load which is far beyond anything that I’ve owned before.
This is a two in one unit and whilst it will obviously take the place of two separate units, it’s worth mentioning that it is a big one. It’s not so much the width that will get you at 68cm but it’s the depth that comes in at about 90cm (140 if you count the door being totally opened), so you want to make sure that you have the space for it, and if you do, you’re in for an absolute treat.
As far as technology goes, this has all the bells and whistles and I can say with a good amount of confidence that you’ll struggling going back to your average washer and/or dryer.
The 7-inch wide touch screen display allows you to easily scroll through the different washing and drying cycles and unlock the archaic knob that you’d be used to with your washing machine, allows you to very easily make subtle changes to the washing/drying process.
I was a little bit nervous having a washing machine with a screen (and some clear computing power) just because I was worried it might be laggy or glitch out, but it was absolutely perfect, super responsive and easy to use.
The screen had me looking more into other cycles in the machine, and there’s a plethora available, a lot of which use AI to detect how dirty your clothes are an the size of the load, but it’s super helpful for just seeing how long is left on a particular load, or how far along during the washing/drying process that it is.
For those that maybe have a super high-end laundry and spend a lot of time in their folding washing or ironing, there’s some pretty decent smarts inside the machine as well. You can access YouTube, Spotify, connect your other SmartHome products to control them, view your Ring doorbell and even connect your Samsung TV to project whatever you’re watching in the living room in your laundry.
There’s also voice control with Bixby which you can use to select cycle options or check on the process of your cycle and again it’s not something I can see people using every cycle load, but it’s nice to have.
The BESPOKE AI combo can also connect to the SmartThings app on your phone as well, to alert you when the cycle is complete (this also went across to my TV/monitor), and you can also see how much energy/water you’ve saved per cycle, or change certain functions mid wash/dry.
As far as the actual washing/drying capability, it was fairly flawless. I was coming from two fairly high-end units, and it was so nice just to be able to chuck massive loads of washing and have it wash/dry in succession. Whilst there is a Super Speed cycle that can wash/dry a 3kg load in 98 minutes, you can expect a load to take 4-5 hours to wash and dry, given this is a Heat Pump dryer, so it’s designed to take care of your clothes.
Like other Samsung machines, there’s a few features like BubbleWash and BubbleSoak which allow you to tell the machine to spend extra time soaking your clothes to get rid of dirt.
It has a 10 star energy rating when it comes to the dryer element (4.5 stars for washing) so you can do so with less guilt knowing that you’re using less energy.There are some above and beyond features in this machine that I’d struggle to live without now, and I fully do recognise that they’re a luxury but that’s what this machine is about.
The first one is the auto opening door, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s so nice to have a door that auto opens both so the clothes are ready to be removed, but also so you don’t get left with that damp smell.
There are also two Auto Dispensing modules at the bottom of the machine, that you can fill with detergent on one side, softener on the other (or detergent in both), so you’re good to go for up to 47 loads if you use both for detergent. This allows you to control the amount of detergent that you’re using on each wash, but it also means you don’t have to keep filling it up, and you’ll easily be notified once you run out too.
There’s also a number of other AI Features including the ability for the machine to keep itself clean every 30-40 cycles, as well as the condenser in the dryer auto cleaning as well.
Because it’s a two-in-one unit, the water from the Heat Pump dryer portion will also go out your drainage (I had an awful container that had to be emptied with my last unit), and the lint filter is super easy to access and empty after each drying cycle as well.
All-in-all, this is the ultimate washing machine/dryer combo on the market and if you’re somebody that spends a lot of time in the laundry, or you are looking at renovating and want the best of the best, this is absolutely it.