If you press the "non-bureaucracy" button that's on every modern dishwasher (usually labeled "quick wash" or a similar euphemism), you get a 'normal' cycle time (which works just fine, regardless of detergent), but at the cost of not being EnergyStar compliant. This is a product design that is entirely the result of government regulation.

No. I'm saying that you don't need a government bureaucracy mandating it. Moreover, you definitely don't need one mandating ever-more-strict energy consumption limits on energy uses that are not driving the consumption problem, which inevitably run up against hard physical limits (e.g. warm water works better for washing dishes).

Take the argument to the point of absurdity: should we have an EnergyStar rule on doorbell efficiency? The same line of reasoning applies, but by golly...if we had one, I'm sure we'd be sitting here arguing about why doorbells have to be barely audible in order to save the planet.

A better fix would be to expand the scope of Energy Star. I'm sure you'll still be able to find a suitable door bell just as easily as you discovered the quick wash button on your dish washer.

And, to take your argument to absurdity, we'd still have lead paint and no nutrition labels.

What is one of the most market-effective US regulations?

Requiring a standardized EnergyGuide appliance label for average yearly energy costs. (Aka the yellow label https://www.energystar.gov/products/ask-the-experts/whats-di... )

What did companies do before that? Installed the cheapest, least-efficient parts, put marketing copy on their boxes about how they were high efficiency, and then passed the costs onto unknowing consumers.

Except it doesn't really, because doorbells use very little current in pretty much any configuration. Appliances use a lot of current in most configurations, hence why many of them require a 240V/20A circuit versus the standard US 120V/15A circuit. Hence why the Energy Star program focuses on appliances.

This is a real stretch as slippery slope arguments go. Pick something better.

To this point, you're making a big leap, going from "current consumption while running", to "overall energy usage". How many times a day are you running your dishwasher? I guarantee mine isn't in the top items in my life that consume electricity, in aggregate.

While EnergyStar may have been a good idea when it was created (when energy prices were lower), it's no longer necessary in a world where cost of use significantly exceeds the cost of the appliance itself during its own lifetime. And if that isn't true, then you really have to ask what you're doing in the first place, regulating the energy use of an appliance that doesn't use much energy?

I think there are certain aspects of EnergyStar that make sense -- the little label that tells me how many watt-hours an AC uses helps me compare products, so fine. Keep the little sticker. But it doesn't require an agency making silly rules about how much energy any dishwasher, doorbell or dongle can use. Let the market decide.

At least once, sometimes twice, very rarely 3 times when my wife is doing a lot of baking or making candy.

Google says dishwashers can draw between 1200W and 2400W. Asking the same source puts a doorbell at 10W to 40W. 2 orders of magnitude less. The dishwasher consumes massively more power than a doorbell.

How many times a day is your doorbell ringing? Does your doorbell ring for a couple hours on each press, like the length of a dishwasher cycle?

Said differently: precisely how "efficient" does EnergyStar need to make dishwashers, or microwaves, or whatever else, before the gains in theoretical "efficiency" are offset by the compensating behaviors of the users working around the brokenness of the system?

I can replace your microwave with an easybake oven, powered by LED lamp, and it'll be "efficient" in terms of operating current draw, but...

you can still push the quick wash button.

the only difference, is that the default choice trades off cleaning time for energy savings.

what is your argument against consumers having a choice?

Don't know what to tell you on that...

Doorbells are an extra pain for consumers to measure power draw for - you can’t easily use a kill-a-watt metre as you have to hardwire them to a low-voltage power source.

I don’t want my video resolution capped for energy-draw reasons, but I’d absolutely like to have some specs on typical power draw so that I can adequately compare doorbells.

Let's round that up to 20W just for the sake of argument, maybe the wired ones draw a lot more.

doorbell: 20W * 24hrs = 480Wh

dishwasher: 1200W * 2hrs = 2400Wh

Your doorbell takes 5 days to use as much power as your dishwasher does in one cycle. 2 doorbells is still 2.5 days. So no, they are not using more aggregate power than your every-other-day dishwasher usage.

I don’t expect this is accurate napkin math for my dishwasher. It’s rated in the range of 240 kWh per year for four loads per week, which puts it under 1200 Wh per load - and that’s for for the standard wash cycle, and I use the “Energy Saver” cycle (which does use extra water, but less energy.).

Probably. The traditional setup uses a 120->24 transformer sitting there burning a couple Watts the entire time, waiting for the few seconds when the doorbell gets turned on. A modern switch mode power supply can use less.

Ideally there would be a standard for practically wiring homes with 48VDC or 24VDC so there is only one centralized idle power overhead, rather than making every single "smart" controls gadget need to step down on its own from 120 (170) volts. Then a standard doorbell would use no power when the button is not being pressed, as you're imagining.

Both of these things are dependent on network effects (ie markets are sticky), which is why talking in terms of standards makes sense.