One of the products that kept popping up on my newsfeed during CES was Bob, a tiny eco-friendly countertop dishwasher made by French brand Daan Tech

Bob claims to be the worlds smallest and fastest autonomous dishwasher. It is available to pre-order now for £299.90 with shipping stated as a vague fall 2020. Full RRP is £349.90.

Bob Mini Dishwasher Dimensions and Capacity

With this being advertised as the smallest dishwasher, its overall dimensions are likely a key selling point.

The dimensions of Bob are:

• Width: 34cm (13.4 inches)
• Height: 49cm (19.3 inches)
• Depth: 49cm (19.3 inches)

It can then accommodate 29 cm plates, so for me, this was a standard dinner plate. I have some oversized plates, which I think are for serving, but I use as a dinner plate due to the amount of food I eat, these did not fit in.

According to the European standard, Bob is a 2 place settings dishwasher.

That equates to about the daily dishes of 2 people: 4 plates, 4 glasses, 2 cups, 2 bowls, a small saucepan, and cutlery (knives, forks, spoons).

The caveat here is that if you want to wash anything like pots, pans, mixing bowls etc the size of these can quickly fill up Bob. I cook all my food from scratch, so I think using this for a couple maybe a little optimistic.

Countertop Dishwasher Comparison

I wasn’t familiar with countertop dishwashers before this review. I did some limited research into alternative options in the UK.

There is a limited selection, and by the looks of things there are essentially just two dishwashers, these are then repackaged and designed for each brand.

The Cookology and electriQ Mini models are the closest like for like competition offering a reasonably slim profile and the option to manually fill them rather than fill from the mains. These are 80mm wider but shorter and less deep.

They use more water and can only accommodate smaller plates.

The other options are not quite the same as Bob. They are just very small normal dishwashers, so they are quite wide and deep, but not very high, and they require plumbing in and use quite a lot of water.

Setting Up Bob

This is advertised as an eco-friendly dishwasher, and part of this includes no plastic overwrapping. Instead, it comes in a handy canvas style bag, which makes getting it out of the box nice and easy, but also gives you a convenient way to carry it, if you move it around a lot.

This mini washing machine has two forms of the inlet, manual or automatic. I used manual, so there was not much physical set up, I just plugged it in and screwed the outlet hose on. I drained it into the sink but if this is a permanent installation you may want to consider trying to run a hose directly into an outlet pipe.

It is worth noting that Bob is quite tall, the press images show the dishwasher sat under cabinets, but it didn’t quite fit under mine, though I have quite large cabinets which may not be the same for people in flats.

Switching the Bob on you will be greeted with a colour display and set up process.

You can connect Bob to the Wi-Fi and link your account. I had some issues here which I think is because I didn’t physically buy the machine I didn’t have a Bob linked to my account.

Dishwasher Cassette

My sample came with a single Bob cassette; this is an all-in-one dishwasher detergent distribution. I was going to criticise them for using so much plastic in this cassette, but it is made from 100% recycled plastic, and you can then return them to the company for refill and reuse.

These cassettes use the exact amount of detergent you need, and the company claims this will do 30 cycles.

The website is not currently selling this separately but when you order a Bob a multi-pack including 3 pop cassettes + 1 rock’n’roll cassette (used to wash the inside of the dishwasher only) is £29.90, and there is 30% discount in pre-order taking it down to £19.90.

So, I assume when paying the full price, it is £30 for 90 days roughly.

You can optionally use your own detergent. Sainsbury’s currently have 65 tablets for £10, so the automatic cartridges Bob uses are quite expensive in comparison.

While not cheap, the cassette is quite good; you flip open the panel below the door, slot it in and forget about it.

In use

You can optionally use Bob using the water mains for automatic filling, or you can manually fill up the reservoir. If you want an automatic filling, you will need to buy a Bob easywater hose for £9.

Mine didn’t come with one, so I did it manually. You require 3.5L of water, which is not a lot for a dishwasher but manually filling it up with a jug is surprisingly time-consuming.

While this claims to be for two people, it depends on what you are washing. If you have made your meal from scratch using multiple pots and pans, then you will likely find this will struggle. The same will apply to competing brands.

This works best with plates, glasses and cutlery. A lot of our pots and pans are quite large, so my experience may not reflect a couple living in a small flat.

Cleaning performance is excellent though; everything came out spotless, things that would have required scrubbing by hand were all done.

I am particularly fussy about how clean my glasses are. If a beer glass is anything other than spotless, the head of the beer will flatten quickly, and handwashing does not achieve the best results. With this, everything came out crystal clear.

Like most washing machines, this has different cycle types; there is a quick cycle which is just 20 minutes, but the default cycle is 1 hour 50 minutes. That seems like a long time, but my full-size dishwasher is 3+hours.

There are 5 programs to choose from: Express, Daily, Intensive, Glasses, Eco

Overall

Bobs claims of being the smallest dishwasher on the market appear to be accurate, and it does a good job at washing your dishes. So, if you have a specific need for a dishwasher this small, then it is an excellent choice.

For me, I would need to have Bob plumbed in for it to be useful. The time it takes to carefully load the dishwasher to make the most of its limited capacity, and the time it takes to fill the reservoir fully could have been used to wash the dishes by hand. Admittedly, dishwashers outperform my hand washing all the time, especially when it comes to things like glasses.

Bob also has the advantage of being the best looking mini dishwasher on the market, which could be an important consideration if you have a trendy but small flat, you likely don’t want some ugly dishwasher sitting on the counter.

Due to its tiny size and manual filling options, this would make a great addition for caravans or campervans.

Posted by Mighty Gadget Blog: UK Technology News and Reviews