You might've heard me mention in the past that one of the most requested
types of videos that I get asked for, are more things to do with kitchen gadgets.
Now I've got a tiny little kitchen.
There's very little room for any more gadgets in it, and I haven't really seen
anything that's caught my attention.
However, just a couple of weeks ago, a French company got in touch and
said, would I be interested in having a look at their mini dishwasher?
Now I've never really thought about having a dishwasher.
I know loads of people have them, but there's just me and the Mrs in the house.
There's just the two of us.
It takes us about 10 minutes to wash up after having a meal.
And it's never really been that big of an issue and there's no room
in the kitchen for a dishwasher.
So I'd never even considered it.
But this last year, you know, with all this stuff that's been going on,
we've been doing quite a lot more cooking at home, grilling things
on one of those contact grills and stuff, and those get really kind
of greasy and it's very hard to clean them and just a few weeks ago
I said, you know what?
I kind of wish we had a dishwasher now.
Because all these things have these these dishwashable removable plates.
And I'd imagine it, would get it a lot cleaner than I could, but
we just don't have room for one.
Anyway, I just thought that was that, until they got in touch.
So Daan Tech, said do I want to see this?
I thought, yes.
and here it is.
It's Bob, the mini dishwasher and the Mrs is really quite
excited about this as well.
A bit pathetic, really getting excited about a dishwasher, but the thing that's good
about this one, from what I've read.
It's very small, a lot smaller, I think, than this box.
There's a lot of packaging in here, but you don't have to plumb it in which
is important to us because we've got no room to plumb anything else in.
So this can just go on the top of a counter, next to the sink like near
the draining board type of thing.
And you can just have the water going into it from like a carafe, like
fill it up manually and then you can have it drain out down the sink.
Now you don't have to have it that way.
You could plumb it in if you wanted to.
But everything that they've described there is perfect for me.
I can plonk it on the top.
It doesn't take up much room, it'll wash up enough dishes for
two people and I can drain it down the existing sink and things.
So.
I said, yeah, that's why I've got this as a sponsored video.
I haven't paid for this.
I hope they don't want it back, but I'll tell you this,
if they do and it works fine.
I'm just going to go and buy one anyway.
So, the idea was just so ideal for my situation and I'm sure for lots of other
people as well, you know, if you've got like a caravan, a mobile home, those kind
of things, and you just want a dishwasher in those but you don't really have room.
Well this probably will fit.
Let's find out.
Now I say it comes from a French company, they're called Dan tech.
Well, it's D a a n tech.
It's like something Alan Partridge would shout out, DAAN TECH, but
yeah, made in France as well.
Not just a French company, actually manufactured in Franc., So let's get
it out of here and hopefully I can then move this whole operation into
the house because I don't really want to be here in the garage it's
. Freezing.
It's actually snowing outside at the moment.
I might do a cutaway to a bit of that.
but I need to put this on the floor I think.
That was easy enough wasn't it.
Nice big bag here.
Right?
Okay.
I suppose the idea is I mean you can transport this thing around couldn't you?
Stick it in here, take it to your holiday Villa or whatever, if you
ever get away again, now there's a number of different colours.
They said, if I chose from a list that they had in stock, it would be quicker.
So I've got one, that's got a red front black sides.
They do black or white sides and then a variety of different
colours for the front.
But, rather than going through all this, I'm going to set it up in the house.
I'm going to use it for a few days and then we'll come back and I'll explain
how it works and what I think of it.
I think that's probably the best way.
Okay.
So here's Bob in my kitchen and it just about fits with very little room to spare
the dimensions of it in centimeters.
It's 34 wide, 49 tall and with the door closed 49 deep.
So yeah, for something you put on a counter, though, it is quite tall and
it's quite deep, but it's as small as it can be while still being useful.
And importantly, for me, it's almost as though it was designed
to fit in this gap in my kitchen.
Looking around the back on the left, we've got the water hose inlet and
on the right that's the outlet.
In the middle is the power connector and that connects to a standard
IEC C13 plug, which is often referred to as a kettle lead.
You can see that all the connectors on the base, are recessed, which enables the
case to be pushed up flat against a wall.
Now, since I'm going to be emptying mine down the sink, I've attached this
black rubber weight to the outlet hose, and I've snipped off any extra section
of that hose that wasn't required.
And I'm going to be filling it up from this carafe.
This holds 1.3 litres and the tank in the dishwasher itself
holds four litres of water.
The inlet for that water tank is in the top of the front.
Now not every wash uses all the water in the tank.
So in normal use it'd probably take two to three of these carafes to
fill it up and I'd best repeat this again, this is just how I'm using it.
You can plumb it all in if you prefer.
There's a variety of built-in programs and you can see on the screen here,
how many litres of water each wash will use and how long it will take.
For most of my tasks, I found an express wash was sufficient,
and that takes just 20 minutes.
Now, once you've selected your program, it starts off by reading the Bob cassette.
So I'd best explain what that is.
It's the cassette or cartridge containing the detergent liquids.
And there are two types of these there's one that's called
pop which works for 30 washes.
And then there's another one called Rock, which is used once every 90
washers for cleaning the machine.
The cassettes slot in neatly into the front of the machine in this compartment
below the main door and a connector in there, interfaces between the cassette
and the device to tell it how many cycles each of those cassettes has done.
In France there's a recycling program for these.
And I think that's going to be available wherever Bob is sold.
Funnily enough, I think it's this detergent cassette that's the reason that
Daan tech contacted me in the first place.
They were looking for someone to show their machine off on YouTube,
to people in the UK and I think it's this cassette connection,
which resulted in them finding me.
Now the price of those cassettes at the moment works out at
around £30 for 90 washes.
That's if you buy a compilation box.
However, if you prefer, you can use your own detergents instead, it's just that
the machine is really designed to work best with their own cassette system.
Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of the video, I'm
really no dishwasher expert.
I'm almost as far removed as you can get from one.
The last time I put anything in a dishwasher must have been
sometime in the late seventies.
But as far as I could tell, this works the same as any other machine I've seen, the
screen informs you as to what's going on.
And as it washes, it works its way through a number of different steps.
And as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't seem to make all that much noise.
I mean, I don't know what others are like, but I find this one quite relaxing.
At the end of a wash cycle, the magnetic catch that's in the top of the door in
the center releases, allows the door just to pop open a bit for the steam to
escape, and then you leave everything for a few minutes, while it all dries, and
then take your stuff out and put it away.
As you'd expect there are a variety of filters that are easily accessible
at the bottom front of the machine.
There's one of those that you rinse every time you do a wash
to get rid of any larger pieces.
And then there's others that you take out every few washes to make sure
that things don't get all stinky.
There's also that spray bar that you can also remove and clean as well.
Now, whilst it is a compact machine, it seems like the designers have
been careful to make sure that it is just about big enough to fit
most normal size things inside.
The manual shows how with careful organisation, you can fit quite a
reasonable amount of stuff in here.
But some of the larger cooking utensils might prove to be a bit of a challenge.
It could be a case of either pots or pans, but not both at the same time.
To make the most of that available space, though, the components that
go inside the tray can either be removed or reconfigured in whatever
layout, best suits your requirements.
I mentioned my Ninja grill at the beginning of this video
and that has had a lot of use over the last few months.
The main downside to it though, is that I felt it's been getting
dirtier every time I've used it, despite my best washing up efforts.
That's because you really need very hot water to shift grease.
So I'm glad that all the removable sections from that will
just about fit in Bob's tray.
So I think that's the basics covered.
So now onto a few additional features.
As well as the preset programs, if you're so inclined, you can create up to four of
your own to suit your individual needs.
Bob can also be connected at via wifi and if you've set it up in your Daan
Tech account, this will let you do things like order new detergent cassettes
directly from the machine and from your computer, you can upload new tunes to
play at the start and end of cycles, add a custom image to the display and
adjust the colour of the interior light.
Oh, and talking about the lights, if you want, at the time of purchase, you can
specify that you want an ultraviolet light in there so you can sanitize objects.
So that's pretty much everything it does.
What do I think about it now that I've had quite a few days
with Bob doing the dishes?
Okay.
So it's a week later and I've used it 14 times.
So I've got quite a bit of experience with it now, I can pass on my opinion.
And after the first couple of uses, I was still very much of the opinion
that I didn't really need it.
I could wash everything from a meal, pots, pans, cups, dry them all, put
them away, in well under 10 minutes.
So it just seemed a little bit superfluous.
And this thought was reinforced by the fact that I couldn't get my big
frying pan into here, along with the plates and cups and things.
So initially I was thinking, well, you know what, maybe I was right first time.
But then over the week, my opinion started to shift in favor of Bob,
because I realized it was just so much better at cleaning things than I am.
Lovely squeaky, clean sparkling glasses and plates.
The kind of things that only a dishwasher can do.
So as a result, I started to save up things.
I did things differently.
I'd keep hold of the things I've used for breakfast.
Save those to lunch, put all of those together in here
at once and then wash it up.
20 minutes after lunch and it was done.
Seemed more convenient if anything, and I was particularly impressed
with the results, especially when it came to things like this grill plate.
out of my Ninja grill.
Ever since I first got this thing, it never looked like it
did when I got it out of the box.
But I put all the stuff out of the Ninja grill in here, did two intensive washes
and they look almost as good as new now.
Now when it comes to things like frying pans, I'm still washing
stuff like that in the sink, but it did suggest that perhaps you could
get ones with detachable handles.
That might be something that I'd consider in the future.
Of course, like anything it's not perfect, there's a couple of things
I'd like to see improved upon.
One of which is the noise it makes to indicate the water tank
has been filled sufficiently.
It's just way too quiet.
And that's on maximum volume.
Perhaps that's as loud as it can go, but maybe with a firmware update they
could just make it sound for longer perhaps, so it's more noticeable,
maybe flash something up on the screen that says the water tank is full.
And also talking about the screen, it'd be nice if perhaps along the top
of it somewhere, it would tell you the current status of the water tank.
So you knew whether or not you needed to fill it up.
Now, moving back towards the positives, earlier on I mentioned how the detergent
cassettes are recycled and they're already made from 100% recycled plastic
in the first place, but there are also arguments to be made for how Bob is better
for the environment in other ways too.
First off, my sink takes about 10 litres of water to fill
up if I'm washing some pots.
Now none of the washes in Bob use more than four litres, it
even keeps a tally on the screen as to how much water it's saved.
But it's not only that, when I'm washing up in the sink, I'll be running that
hot tap for a minute or so while the
combi boiler kicks in before it starts delivering hot water.
And that seems pretty inefficient getting a whole boiler system to kick into
action, just so I can wash up some pots.
Meanwhile, over at Bob's house, he's just taking in cold water
and heating up what he needs.
So while I haven't done the maths, it just feels less wasteful all round.
But now let's look at the price on the Daan tech website.
at the time of putting this video together, a Bob mini dishwasher
costs £350 including delivery.
Now, since I've never been in the market for a dishwasher, I've got no idea how
that stacks up with a full size one.
But then again, there's little point in me comparing something that won't
fit in my house to something that can.
The website states that Bob is the World's smallest and fastest dishwasher.
And if you're looking for a dishwasher that you can carry in a bag, one
that you can use with or without plumbing it in, that'll even just
empty into a bucket if you want.
One that will fit in spaces that others won't.
Well, this is it.
But perhaps it's that headline feature that counts the most against this because
after all it is a very small dishwasher.
And if you think of the amount of stuff you can get in here, you could probably
wash that up in 10 minutes in the kitchen sink, but you wouldn't get the level
of cleanliness that you do out of this.
So it's kind of swings and roundabouts.
To some people this is like a must have and to other people, perhaps
like myself, I can get by without it.
But I've got a feeling that if they do ask for this back and I send it
off to them, it probably wouldn't be too long before I start to miss it and
then I have to get myself one anyway.
But that was Bob, the world's smallest dishwasher.
I hope you've enjoyed having a look at this video here today, but
that's it for the moment as always.
Thanks for watching.