Bob is a small and easy to move dishwasher that comes with a bag in order to transport it. Once connected to the electricity and the discharge pipe, Bob is ready to be used. Born thanks to a Parisian start-up and it is no coincidence: firstly, because of the great attention France pays to the start-ups world, as Anna Barbieri, Bob’s young country manager for Italy, explains to Domus: “There are even TV programmes about it”. The second reason is easy to guess and is linked to the small size of living spaces in the French capital, where students and young workers often live in a handful of square metres. Mini apartments where a traditional built-in dishwasher would struggle to find its place. And here comes Bob, which is a little bulkier than a microwave oven and can be placed on a shelf, on a table, or even moved around and started up when needed.

With its rounded lines, a wide choice of colour options and that functional box look that could be anything and everything – an oven, a mini-fridge, a simple piece of furniture, maybe even a hydroponic little greenhouse – Bob fully embodies the modern-day ideal of a smart appliance in terms of aesthetics, a device that hides its function as much as possible and can be easily adapted to different contexts, probably almost all of them Ikea-furnished, while maintaining a certain personality. Bob is contained in a cardboard box held together by two plastic ties. Once opened, the box, which does not use disposable plastic, is easily disposed of. As for many other start-ups, the packaging of the product, an essential feature in a world where selling online is everyday more common, is one of the most critical aspects,subject of continuous improvements that can come from experience only (this has also happened to VanMoof). In my own case, the low front element, which protects the soap cartridge, was slightly offset; no special tools were required to fix it.

Installing the dishwasher is quite simple, also thanks to a PDF instruction manual which is accessed through a QR code. Above all, this reminds us of that of many other connected devices we have experienced in recent years. Even though it does not have its own app, Bob has a series of options that can be directly customised from the site, and once connected to the electricity the dishwasher connects to the smartphone first, then to the home Wi-Fi network. The digital interface is refined and functional, with well-organised flows on a colour LCD screen on the dishwasher front panel and perhapsit is not the most successful but certainly the most surprising characteristic of this small appliance, with precise flows that really simplify and improve the user’s experience. Once the preliminary operations have been completed, the internal tray has been assembled and the soap cartridge inserted – the Bob cassette, which, once used up, can be ordered with a click directly from the dishwasher panel, or replaced with simple dish soap – the device can be used. And here the options multiply.

Bob’s strength is not its size, rather its versatility due to the design choices. Apart from the obvious fact that it is a connected appliance – but what is not connected these days, you might ask – the strength of its design lies in its ability to adapt to different situations and environments, and even to switch from one to another, thanks to its weight of around ten kilos and two handles that make its transport easier.

It can be the dishwasher in a shared student flat, the dishwasher in a young professional’s house, but it could be placed in a study as well, it could be in the college cupboard and only be taken out when needed, or you could take it with you to a holiday home or a camper. You can hook it up to an anti-theft cable if you use it in a shared environment. It can be used wherever there is electricity, even on a campsite – in a “nomadic” mode, recycling a wonderful French word found in the official guide. Bob is designed to be connected to the home water supply network, but it has an integrated tank capable of holding enough water for one wash and of refilling manually too. The same goes for the drain, which can be connected to the mains or to freely flow into a sink or, why not, a jerrycan. There are a couple of slight errors in the product’s packaging: the wastewater discharge is right next to the electricity connection, a position that could be reconsidered to ensure greater safety; furthermore, the quality of the discharge pipe is not up to the standard of the rest of the product, but it can be obviously replaced quickly and with a minimal expense. These are all details that could be reviewed and improved for a possible Bob2.

Once the dishwasher has been installed and connected up – to water, electricity and Internet – all you have to do is fill it up, choose an option and run it. Bob has four standard cycles, including an ecological one and a fast one, another dedicated to glasses only and the possibility of saving as many personalised ones. Otherwise, the mini-dishwasher behaves just as you would expect: its mini-basket is a scale reproduction of what you would find in a usual dishwasher, on a single level. It is suitable, without advancing too far, for the needs of one or two people: you can put a few plates, a couple of glasses and some cutlery in it, or you can rearrange the interior space for special needs thanks to the tray modular elements – for instance, if you need to wash a lot of glasses after an aperitif with friends. This extremely classic approach leads us to wonder whether, in the next few years, we might not see an optimisation of small dishwashing spaces, perhaps with new technologies, rather a simple miniaturisation of the dishwashers we already know.

Useful and important for today is the – optional and paid – ultraviolet lamp to disinfect everyday devices and objects. In this way, Bob is transformed from a dishwasher into a sanitiser. Certainly, putting keys and other everyday objects in a place where you would normally wash dishes seems strange, and psychologically it probably will not give many people the impression of being ‘clean’. But it is a good idea and this optional function underlines Bob’s best quality, its flexibility.

Bob is certainly not the first mini-dishwasher in history. Or the only one. Just taking a look at Google to realise the number of alternatives. Many are oriental, and there is Heatworks’ Tetra, one of the most renowned devices at CES 2019. With a futuristic aesthetic and an ongoing development, Tetra introduced a basic theme, the sustainability one. Proportionally to so many households consisting of a single person, or at most two, the impact on the environment of a traditional dishwasher is extremely high. At the same time, washing dishes by hand consumes up to ten times as much water as a dishwasher. In Bob’s communication, perhaps there is a slight disregard for the ecological attitude of our times, which often transcends into shameless green washing by companies. But with an indicative consumption of not even 4 litres of water and 0.35 kWh per wash cycle, it is superfluous to insist that this A energy class dishwasher capsule could have been told in another, perhaps smarter way. There is also a programme for collecting used soap cartridges. But Daan Tech is all about functionality, French quality and a language that looks at millennials and Generation Z in the face. And he is probably right to do so.