Sounds like the dryer isn't working right but who knows?

Miele has excellent telephone customer service. Call them with your washer AND dryer experiences and I'll bet they'll get you on your way to satisfaction with both.

PS - controls for sophisticated equipment are rarely intuitive.

For sure pose your questions to Miele but dig into the user manuals too. You may discover after the fact that at least for your washer, the info you wanted to have is in them and probably easily found.

"The dryer has a drain tube in the back that's usually connected to the same drain pipe as the washer. If the installer did this, no water will appear in the condensing container (I never open mine)."

Ah, yes that probably explains it.

Give your laundry a good shake as you transfer from the washer to the dryer. Should make a big difference in the wrinkles.

^^ I will try that. I also changed the conductivity setting since I have very soft water; that might help. We'll see.

SoftSteam isn't working very well. Was trying to steam some wrinkles out of a tablecloth. What a joke...

I do not have your type of dryer, but if it is wrinkling, start with MUCH less dry.

"I do not have your type of dryer, but if it is wrinkling, start with MUCH less dry."

Please educate me on this. I thought you'd want the cycle to dry more thoroughly and take the clothes out why they're still hot. ?

I believe the "hot air" inside a heat pump dryer is considerably cooler than that in a conventional dryer using natural gas or electrical resistance as a heat source. The drying function (in a heat pump dryer) works differently - the air is made to be warm enough (but not hot) so as to absorb humidity from the tumbling clothes in the chamber and the humidity is removed by passing the humid air over a cold coil to condense it out. It works the same in this regard as an air conditioner that condenses humidity out of the air, when warm air is passed over a cold coil. Then the same air is warmed again and recirculated. There's no air exhaust produced.

I believe the hot air in a conventional dryer is what produces the relaxing of creases.

I have no experience with steam settings in a heat pump dryer.

This is why I never buy washer dryer sets. Miele has a good rep for washers and dishwashers but the whole dryer thing sounds way too gimmicky. Unless someone has unlimited airy space for hanging their clothes, putting damp or not completely dry things in drawers and linen closet seems like a recipe for disaster. Mold would definitely be an issue in some climates. I put my dollars into nice washers and buy basic dryers that simply dry clothes. If I want to steam wrinkles out it's easy enough to toss in a damp hand towel for a few minutes. Washers are supposed to get things clean. Dryers should get things dry without special gizmos and gadgets other than a good thermostat and timer. I also refuse to buy any dishwasher without fan assisted heated dry. Gads, I miss the seventies appliances.

Miele is far from the only manufacturer of heat pump dryers. They're much more common abroad because they're more energy efficient than the conventional kind that dry using hot air. And more adaptable, they can be used in places where an exhaust duct isn't present.

A heat pump dryer can produce "dry" clothes. One has to be patient, as I mentioned above, because the cycles are quite long to do so.

Wow. Reading this thread has sent me down a rabbit hole LOL. I found this video regarding different clothes dryers to be quite interesting and informative.

https://youtu.be/xn03N3b0-lE?si=TCC42qLtWQkjIfcV

I have a compact LG condenser dryer. When the clothes are removed, they are warm and feel somewhat moist but after a few minutes the remaining moisture evaporates, they're dry, and pretty wrinkle-free. I use dryer balls to help reduce balling of clothes in this compact dryer's drum.

The clothes are dry. Dry but wrinkled.

" I found this video regarding "

I liked that video.

When I heard him talking about different dwyers, I realized, he talks like Me. Elmer Fudd!

That video ignores the fact that the biggest energy savings from a heat pump vs vented dryer is the fact that the heat pump dryer does not exhaust conditioned air from the home. Also his suggestion that motors and bearings will fail twice as fast is wrong, because start/stop cycles are much more important than actual run time.

I have been researching these dryers and appreciate everyone's comments. About the Soft Steam not working, from my reading, the steam function draws water from the condensing container. If you have the dryer connected to a drain, you actually have to *add* water to the container for the steam to work. Hope this helps -

And now I'm off to the store to replace the 35 (!) year old Hoover that died in its sleep :(

Update: Well, it's been about a month in, and things are going much, much better. I picked up a few tips along the way from here and Reddit which have helped. The tip that make the biggest difference is if there is a mixed load of different weights of fabrics, put it on time dry. That right there was a game-changer. Now, yes stuff is still a tad bit wrinkly, but not a crumpled mess like before. A good shaking-out before folding or hanging helps, and another tip was to use wool dryer balls; that also helps with the wrinkles.

I'm also getting used to the different feel of the dried clothes that come out of this type of dryer -- clothes don't feel "cooked" like they tend to in a vented dryer; they're dry but not dried out, if that makes any sense. And they're softer.

Definitely Bed Linens setting for sheets and blankets -- sheets come out perfect on that setting. I've been using Normal for towels, which is working well, and I discovered the Table Linens settings buried in the more settings option -- the tablecloths come out way better on this setting than on the Normal setting; why I don't know, but they do.

So yea, it's going much, much better now that I'm on the downslope of the learning curve. This thing really does take getting used to, it's not intuitive and it's very different than a conventional vented dryer. Not worse -- in fact I like it better -- just different.

It’s only different becuse it has more settings than the ”Typical” American dryer.

Once you get used to it ”normal” washer/dryers are going to seem very limited/plain.

Thanks for the update! my experience with the same machine has been similar. I find the SoftSteam feature is a bust, but I'm happy with the dryer overall once I figured out how to get my pants to dry without deep creases (shakeout, dryer balls, add a smallish wet towel into the load). The bed linens setting is great.