Voltas beko 8 Place Settings Table Top Dishwasher (2020/2021, DT8S, Silver, Inbuilt Heater)

You may find this review a bit long, but we thought it will be useful.

Edit Nov2020: Some background. We live in Bengaluru in an apartment, exclusively served with ground water through the borewell in the complex. The ground water is significantly hard with the TDS reading @585.

We got this dishwasher a month back & this review is after using it for a month.

To put it simply – its very good & has made a significant impact on our lives.

Before we get into the details – this was bought by us after a lot of research. More so, on its dimensions & performance.
We acknowledge the efforts of so many people for their various reviews.

The research was important as it was a table top dishwasher & we needed to be very clear whether it fits in our kitchen. As you can see from the photo above, it was a perfect match.
Since there are so many small things to be kept in mind while buying, we thought to put as many photos as possible in this review so that you may find it helpful.
Of importance is the power outlet. In many households, the power socket is generally a 5A-6A one, but the unit comes with a big 15A plug. Therefore a reducer plug socket is required as shown.

The second thing of paramount importance is the inlet water connection. We took some time to figure this out. You will need a water cock as shown and a adapter that connects the water cock to the plastic socket on the inlet pipe. This is most important and we searched & couldn’t find it online. Its should be available in a decent hardware shop. We paid Rs.60 for this.

As explained, as the water is hard, we have installed Eco Crystal water treatment unit which works on magnetic principle. It is not a water softener but separates the salt so that it doesn’t stick on the surface & insides of the dishwasher. Its performance is too early to quote (Edit Sep2022: Frankly not sure about its impact)
Now coming to the dishwasher itself, we found it having a good amount of space for our articles including milk cookers, pans, kadai. etc. The photo above is an understatement of what this unit can accommodate. We will update with more photos later. We have also put in a vessel used for making ghee from milk cream – It came out cleaner then we expected – nearly fully clean, requiring only a hand rinsing.
As many have explained, it takes some learning to use the unit optimally, but we had no issue even in the first load. The articles came out cleaner than our expectations. Photos as above.
Although you can use a detergent tablet, we have used salt, detergent & clean & shine individually to have better control. All are of Fortune make & we are quite happy with its performance.
As stated by others it makes good sense to read the manual start to end before the first wash & we found it very helpful.
We also acknowledge the service technician who came to install the unit, who explained & demonstrated the use thoroughly & correctly – explaining some of the common mistakes people commit while using – even though the machine could not be installed in the place, as we were not ready with the inlet connections. we will update more later

Edit1: 2021: The motor failed. It was replaced under warranty. I suggest that it is very important to plug into a 15A socket & not use the adapter to fit a 6A socket.

Edit2: Sep2022: Its nearly 2 years of usage. Here’s the feedback:
As a product & its efficiency – its fabulous. Does more than it is designed to do. Been consistently delivering clean & dry utensils & plates. We have been loading to the fullest extent always & cleaning is the same.
Easily works for a family of 4. For 5 people you may have to load nearly twice a day.

So, is this dishwasher any good? Simply put, yes.

I see a number of negative reviews of this machine but in my opinion and 2½ months of experience, I can say this machine is almost as good as a full size machine.

So what’s the biggest problem with this dishwasher? The awkward design of the baskets. The baskets are designed for Western dishes and cookware and some Indian dishes, such as stainless steel plates with high sides don’t fit easily in the baskets. Also difficult to load: pressure cookers.

But why is that important? Because of the way the hot water hits the dishes from the bottom. If the dish isn’t sufficiently exposed from the bottom, then it won’t get clean. So it’s very important to learn how to load the dishes correctly. It took me about 10 days before I learnt how to do that properly. This, importantly, is the same for all dishwashers.

Once the loading has been figured out, it’s important to learn the limitations of any dishwasher, big or small, high tech or low tech. They can’t fully clean dishes that have dried and stuck food (milk, curds, dal, rice, etc). Those can be difficult to clean even by hand. So help the machine by using a brush or a scrubbing pad.

Once the loading and preparation are done correctly, I have found that the dishes come out just as clean as from bigger machines such as Bosch that people in my extended family have. That too on the eco mode that requires less water and energy.

As for the long cycle times, I get around it by planning – I load the dishwasher and use the delay function so that the cycle starts late and ends at a convenient time.

On the whole, I find that this little dishwasher perfectly suits small families of 2 or 3 people. At the price that’s about half of a full size machine, is actually very good value for money.

Edit – July 2020
The machine is working very well and I’m very happy to have bought it. It was a real boon during the lockdown. We faced difficulty in finding good dishwasher detergent or tablets during the lockdown so now we have stocked up.
Tip for good dishwasher performance: Avoid using old detergent or tablets. The expiry date is usually about 2 years after manufacture. Expired or badly stored detergent/tablets don’t wash the vessels very well and you might end up having to rewash some vessels.