Hisense DH5S102BW

Verdict

With its large 10kg drum, smart app control and drying rack, the Hisense DH5S102BW manages to pack a lot in. It’s a capable heat pump tumble dryer too, delivering quality drying results with relatively low running costs. The main interface could be a bit clearer to use, though.

Introduction

Following the same pattern of recent Hisense products that I’ve reviewed, the Hisense DH5S102BW tumble dryer aims to beat the competition by offering a huge number of features for the price.

In the case of this heat pump dryer, that means that as well as traditional control, there’s a smart app, and you get a drying rack in the box for lay-flat items.

Design and features

• Smart app
• Includes drying rack
• Slightly confusing control panel

Matching other Hisense products, such as the Hisense WF5S1045BW washing machine, the Hisense DH5S102BW is a stylish and modern-looking tumble dryer. I like the strip of black that runs across the top, giving a touch of interest to the white appliance.

The default option for this tumble dryer is to dump water into the water reservoir that pulls out the front where the detergent drawer would be on a washing machine. This is a little slow to empty, thanks to the small outlet on top; if you’d rather not bother, there’s a condensate hose at the back, which can be plumbed directly into a drain.

There’s a large 10kg drum on this model, which is about as big as you can get in a tumble dryer. A nice, large door makes loading easy, and I’m a fan of the light inside, which makes it easy to see what you’re doing and that you don’t miss items when unloading.

There’s a simple dial to select the drying cycle that you want. There are all of the standard options, plus special programmes for delicates, wool, bedding and baby care. And, there’s an Ion Refresh option, which uses ions to refresh clothes without heat, which is a neat way of taking musty-smelling clothes and making them feel fresh.

This tumble dryer also has a rack that clips over the door. Similar to the one in the Samsung DV90T6240LN, the rack lets you place items that shouldn’t be tumbled, such as cuddly toys and trainers.

With each mode, there’s a choice of sensor drying targets, which include extra dry, cupboard dry and iron dry. Oddly, there’s no hanging dry option, which most other tumble dryers have. In addition, there’s a Drying Level choice, with three options.

The manual confusingly says, “The drying level is divided into 3 levels, and the display shows 1-3 suns, which can be used to dry clothes according to the number and material of the clothes.” It doesn’t give additional information as to what that means and how to use the setting, which seems to clash with the sensor level selection. Slightly clearer instructions would make sense.

There’s a smart app, ConnectedLife, which can be used to remote control the tumble dryer. Here, scanning the barcode found the correct model, and I soon had my Hisense DH5S102BW connected to the app and my home network.

From the app, I could set the tumble dryer mode, and there’s a neat WashDry Sync option: this sets the tumble dryer automatically based on the wash mode used on a Hisense connected washing machine.

There are a few extra drying cycles available from the app, but the Dry Level option is still not very well explained: it gives a choice of Low, Middle and High.

There’s also a timed mode, where the tumble dryer will run for a set amount of time. This is less efficient than using the sensor, although it can be useful if you want to quickly finish off an item, say running the Hisense DH5S102BW for 15 minutes.

At the end of each cycle, the door filter needs to be cleaned. This is a double filter, which does a good job of trapping lint inside, making it easy to clean.

There’s also a heat pump filter at the bottom of the machine, which needs to be cleaned after every five uses, and the heat exchanger should be vacuumed every 20 uses.

Performance

• Gentle drying
• Good running costs but not the cheapest

This is an A+++-rated tumble dryer, although running costs can vary between appliances that have the same rating, so I run my own tests.

First, I started with the cupboard dry test. Here, I found that my sample washing came out with the dryer having removed 99.18% of the moisture in it. That’s good, in that the washing wasn’t over-dried, so it hasn’t lost weight because fibres have been removed; however, a few percent under this would have been alright, too: a small amount of moisture left is fine, as clothes can still be folded and put away.

I found that the Hisense DH5S102BW cost 31p to run this cycle, which is 5p more than the Whirlpool W6 D94WR UK cost to run.

There’s not a hanging dry option, but the Hisense DH5S102BW’s iron dry setting achieves similar results to the hanging dry option on other machines. Here, my washing came out having removed 95.37% of the moisture, reducing running costs to 20p.

That’s a good result, and similar to the Samsung DV90T6240LN; the Whirlpool W6 D94WR UK was even cheaper, costing just 17p for this cycle.

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