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IFB Washing Machine in India – Review 2024

By on October 17, 2022

IFB is one of the rare, local but world-class premium brand. It is the market leader in the front loaders segment occupying over 40% of the market. This number is humongous given that even LG, the distant second occupies around 32%. These statistics speaks volumes about the presence this four-decade old brand has, in this segment. Though established in 1974 as engineering tools and blanking component manufacturers, but now has a solid presence in the consumer electronics market. Foraying into the washing machine segment at the time of economic liberalization in 1991, company has come a long way and positioned itself as market leader in the front loader segment. Build quality of IFB washing machine is superior. Industry experts reckon this is due to its partnership with Bosch and Siemens at the time when it decided to embark into the electrical appliances segment.

Key Washing Machine Technologies

Smart Loader to Smartly Manage Your Laundry

Smart Loaders are new class of washing machine which IFB believes are India’s first smart washing machine. It is smart in the sense that it takes care of the special needs otherwise not possible with conventional washing machines. For example, it smartly discerns heavily soiled school uniform which your kid would have stained during the recently concluded sports event to the near-invisible stray string of your puppy’s hair tucked inside your T-shirt. Smart loaders are also armed with smart technologies to save electricity and thereby your hard-earned money. Best part is that Smart Loaders comes with 4 years of warranty. Not only this, it also comes with 10 years spare parts support promise.

Wide Gamut of Wash Styles Soothing Your Specialized Need

New breed of IFB front loaders offers wide range of washing styles like:

  1. Air bubble Wash
  2. 360° Wash
  3. Cradle Wash
  4. O2 Wash
  5. Steam Wash

360° Wash

360° wash is achieved using an uncommon but interesting water framework which spouts the water in a 360° manner inside the drum. IFB manifest ingenious engineering where water in the wash system is sprayed out directly through a nozzle on the garments under wash, with the specifically designed drum circulating it for 360-degree motion. This wash ensures that the loaded clothes are being evenly soaked with detergent properly penetrating to provide an immaculate wash

O2 Wash

O2 wash is the technological innovation by IFB wherein washer generates millions of air bubbles which goes deep into the fabric to remove out the stubborn dirt to give a clean wash. And then during the rinse cycle through 3D wash system, the washer forces out all the detergent off the garments so that the washed-out clothes comes out absolutely clean out of the machine.

Cradle Wash

Revolutionary washing styles like 360° and O2 are pretty effective for giving stain-free wash for heavily soiled large pile of laundry. But what about the delicate wears? Well, the answer is IFB’s Cradle wash. Cradle wash is exquisitely crafted for washing the delicate clothes like satins, laces, silk etc, preventing the washer and the detergent to get too harsh on them. Cradle wash thus ensures the gentle care such delicate garments deserve.

Steam Wash

In high end IFB washing machine water and steam forms a dynamic duo. A small proportion of water can be used to generate a lot of steam, which then expands to occupy more volume. Steam wash helps in complementing the water wash, by keeping the loaded laundry soft, gentle and wrinkle-free.

IFB Aqua Energie to Tackle and Treat Hard Water

Hard water problem is common in various places across India. Besides the ill health impact that hard water causes, it is also hazardous to the washer. It becomes difficult to dissolve detergent in hard water if used in the washer. Also, white layers of residues get accumulated around the drum and the supply pipe, thereby choking them. To tackle this challenge arising out of hard water IFB has come up with Aqua Energie technology.

Main purpose of Aqua Energie technology is to treat and convert hard water to soft. Models equipped with this technology have a built-in aqua filter that breaks down the bicarbonates in hard water into minutely fine crystals. Due to very small size of this generated crystals, they are easily removed alongside the flow of water. Thus, this way it mitigates the risk of scale accumulating on critical machine parts and subsequently getting choked. This treated water also revives the effectiveness of detergent for cleaning.

Deep Cleaning with Bi-axial Rotation 4D Swirl Jet and Crescent Moon Drum

Premium IFB top load washing machine comes loaded with various technologies that impart deep and thorough cleaning.  First is the bi-axial motion technology which initially makes the clothes rotate horizontally. Later, they are vertically tumbled. This ensures “360 degree wash” of the inserted laundry by giving all the clothes equal chance for a wholesome wash. Complimenting bi-axial rotation there are 4 dynamic water jets creates immaculate deep cleaning.

Every day dirt either gets stuck deep in the fabric or clings to the clothes due to stickiness of oil like substances secreted by our skin. This is where deep clean washing machines from IFB comes to rescue. Modern IFB top load washing machines come with soft scrub pads that gently scrubs off these stubborn dirt particles using powerful swirl jets. These swirl jets using the centre punch mechanical action gently squeezes out the adamant dirt particles out of the clothes.

Drum of the the modern IFB washing machine comes with crescent moon design. Smooth crescent grooves on the surface of the drum create a gentle wash cushion during the wash cycle so that the sanctity of the cloth’s fabric is preserved.

Triadic Pulsator

Though IFB is market leader in front loaders, it is making attempt to cater audience preferring top loaders. In the last few years IFB has been manufacturing top loader washing machine too and impressing with its washing performance in this type of washers as well. Triadic Pulsator used in the new high-end IFB washing machines is the testimony of that. It has soft scrub pads for gentle removal of stains. Then the powerful swirl 3D jet of water is activated, which helps in dislodging dirt from every corner of the garments.

Convenient Washing With Laundry Add, Time Delay and Auto Load Balancing

Front load IFB washing machines come with Laundry Add that lets you add laundry item in between the running wash cycle in case you forget to add them earlier. This too, without you needing to wait for the full cycle to complete. If you worried if adding clothes in between would disturb the balance of the load inside the washing machine, there is Auto Balance function which would automatically balanced of the load by redistribution of the laundry elements. Finally there is a Time Delay option that allows you to postpone the start of a wash cycle as per your requirement. You can customize this delay time between 30 minutes to 24 hours.

 

All Around Protection with Voltage Protection, Auto Restart and Child Lock

Modern IFB washing machines are well equipped with protective technologies to safeguard you from the vagaries of voltage, perils of power cuts, and impishness of toddlers.

Power outages is nothing new in India–we all have or even worse–do regularly face that. And whenever power goes the washing machine settings are generally reset to default, overriding the settings which were in action just before the powercut. But thankfully, modern IFB washing machines come with a dedicated memory element which saves the wash cycle and related settings so that your washer resumes when the power comes back. Also voltage fluctuations are a side effect of power cuts. Because when power comes back there is surge in the supplied power which can be detrimental to the life of large electrical appliances like washing machine.  New IFB washing machines are protected with voltage protection technology wherein an inbuilt smart micro controller pauses the washing machine when the supplied voltage is beyond the safe operating limit and resumes the operation when the voltage level stabilizes.

Another good thing about new IFB washers is that they come with a Child Lock option so that the playfulness of your toddler do not mess the washing machine’s setting.

IFB – Is Fine or Bad?

Though IFB has good clout over washing machine segment in India, it still has the scope for improvement. Let’s see what’s great about IFBs and what’s not so good.

Good things first. One of the commendable entity of IFB washing machine is its quick wash time compared to other premium brands like Samsung or LG. Rapid wash functionality available in high washers is pretty quick in completing the cleaning. Also, some smart loaders provide a high-speed variable frequency drive motors capable of clocking 1400 RPM which outshines its competitors. Moreover, it’s load adjustable; meaning you can change the speed of the motor to suit your needs of laundry. Also, the hard water to soft water conversion is great utility option for those residing in towns where supply-water is usually hard.

Talking about the not so good stuff, IFB washer’s build quality isn’t as premium as those offered by LG or Whirlpool. Though IFB is pretty reliable and robust brand, it lacks innovative features offered by Samsung or LG washers. For example, to counter FlexWash by Samsung or TwinWash by LG there isn’t any tangible alternative from IFB. Also, you might find some issue with IFB services in some tier-2 or tier-3 cities and towns with IFB washers.

Conclusion

IFB, a business established during the Bengal’s communist regime has come a long way to become a dominant force in Indian washing machine industry. It’s a commendable effort considering other Indian brands like Videocon, Godrej and BPL have failed to impress Indian audience against the likes of foreign brands—Whirlpool, LG, Panasonic etc. With more than two decades of experience in this segment, and earlier partnerships with reputed global firms like Bosch and Siemens, IFB has time and again come out with products with robust build quality and decent cleaning performance at a reasonable price. It’s a shrewd Indian brand, spending minimum on advertising and marketing of its products. IFB’s primary brand attraction has been mainly due to word-of-mouth publicity and repeat purchases by the customers.

About the Author:
Hussain Kanchwala is an Electronics Engineer from University of Mumbai. As an Analyst at BijliBachao he keeps a tab on latest technologies in gadgets and appliances, tracks businesses of white goods companies and monitors the consumer behavior. With a background in engineering, penchant for detail, and flair for writing he regularly write reviews about brands and their products. .

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