The days of manually scrubbing away at laundry on a washboard may be long gone, but according to Samsung’s research, 70 percent of the consumers it surveyed pretreat their laundry on top of their washing machines. To the company, a logical step was to make this process easier by adding a sink, complete with water jet and a surface for scrubbing away stains, right into the top of the machine. Enter the Activewash, a new top-loading washer unveiled at CES 2015 with a sink built into the top. Instead of having to schlep soiled shirts and unwashed unmentionables from the bathroom to the basement, people can now just dunk their dirty clothes into the washer, let them soak, then drop them into the basin via a slot. The water used in the pretreating step isn’t wasted; it goes into the machine, too.
A separate handle opens and closes each lid, so you can use just the sink to wash your hands, or just the washer without the sink. “It’s almost so simple, why hasn’t someone done this before?” says Dean Brindle, Director of Samsung’s Laundry Product Management.
When it comes to laundry, Samsung is big on speed and simplicity. Two of the three models that come with activewash, the WA8700J and the WA7700J, will have another feature, Super Speed, a first for Samsung’s top-loaders. They boast a 36-minute clean time. A fast wash cycle is nothing new, but when combined with a Power Foam feature, the result is a 40-percent-faster clean time that won’t result in still-dirty clothes, according to Samsung. The company also boasts the largest capacity washers on the market, which means fewer loads of laundry all around.
The company hasn’t made the Super Speed and Activewash features universal, but Brindle predicts consumers will be clamoring for both options, and one day, there could be sinks on all of Samsung’s washers.
Updated 5/6/2015: Samsung’s Activewash Top Load Washer is now available for $1,200.
