In 2014, in Europe, there was much ado about 666.
That was the number of an EU law that required vacuum cleaners to use a maximum of 1,600 watts – and there was a lot of talk about the EU allegedly ‘’banning powerful vacuum cleaners!’’
What actually happened is that manufacturers had to get the same suction with less power. And they did. Because when aims are clear, engineers know what they’re doing.
The outcome? Better products, achieving the same result with less energy and more intelligence in the design.
And this is how the humble vacuum cleaner got better.
— Regulation (EU) 666/2013 on ecodesign requirements for vacuum cleaners. In force since 1 September 2014.
@EUCommission adding mandatory reparability and not chained to some remote server sounds a nice complement ;)
@EUCommission And per September 1, 2017, the maximum use became 900 watts. Meanwhile I can still just sweep my parquetry with a soft broom and sometimes do some wet cleaning.
Aug 3, 2026, 1:09 PMGood for you! 👏👏
But not everybody is able to.
@Catha They thought they had to show a robot vacuum cleaner ON PARQUETRY. 😂
Aug 3, 2026, 10:42 AM@EUCommission
So, why wait? Maximize the Horsepower in Cars! If you have 500 of 100 hp, you can not go faster than 50-80-120.
So, max 200 hp in 2028, 150 hp in 2032 and 100 hp in 2036 for new cars and motorcycles. I bet that less energyconsumption will be the effect.
@Hjboon @EUCommission Let's stop driving cars and motors at all.
@Hjboon @EUCommission Properly funding public transport, restricting thru traffic in cities (to ideally non) and making cities walkable/cyclable would be better than this.
@EUCommission so you have data on the efficiency gain?
It would be interesting to know how much efficiency still can be gained.
Which products do you plan to forcefully eco-optimize next?
I think SUV, although, these would be better interdicted instead of omptimized.
@EUCommission i hope that picture is not created with A.I?...down with A.I <waving virtual pitchfork> :noai:
Now if it is...you know YOUR OWN rules Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 Starting August 2, 2026, the European Union WILL enforce mandatory disclosure for content created with the help of AI.
@EUCommission
So yes, in 2014 the EU made some good decisions. Great!
Now, take a good long hard look at yourselves, and at the world. Think about refugees, climate change, genocide, "AI", digital sovereignty, and rethink your current policies?
@EUCommission And so why did Europe extend the deadline for fossil fuel car bans...? Can we conclude Europe fears its car manufacturers are less innovative then vacuum cleaner manufacturers 🤔
Aug 3, 2026, 10:33 AM@smeulski they fear that the electric vehicle higher prices leave Europeans without non-Chinese private automobiles... @EUCommission
Aug 3, 2026, 1:36 PM@smeulski @EUCommission
Because not one country will have enough electricity to power all the extra e-cars. Even now there are counties where blackouts are possible due to use of more electricity due to whatever (airco's at the moment, I guess...) They will have to use fossil fuels to create enough electricity. Like right now gas prize is getting up because people should heat/cool, cook,.. with electricity. So on the other hand, to create more electricity (some) gouvernements use gas. How can they order to all drive an electric car when there's already shortage of electricity?
@EUCommission you got me intrigued. What factors determined the threshold of 1600 watts?
@autkin @EUCommission Above 1,500W your vacuum gets louder and hotter, but your floors don’t really get any cleaner. In other words: you can’t get your floors cleaner by putting in more power. You need to optimise the actual dust gathering. The public didn’t know that, they thought loud==clean and manufacturers happily sold ever higher wattages.
So all power above 1,500W is essentially wasted. Give manufacturers a bit of headroom and you’re at 1,600W.
@ArtHarg @EUCommission thanks, but that's too hand-wavy, hence the question. Is there a research paper making this claim? Alternatively the noise (dB) or transformation efficiency (Pa/W?) level could be legislated, not the power. We see plenty of historical cases when thresholds deemed "enough" were surpassed because some bottlenecks were relieved.
@autkin @ArtHarg @EUCommission Maybe because this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
As the EU commission said, the results are there.
@autkin @EUCommission If you want the nitty-gritty, it's all in here: https://www.eceee.org/static/media/uploads/site-2/ecodesign/products/vacuum-cleaners/vacuum-cleaners-ecodesign-study-final-report-eup-lot-17-final-report.pdf
If you want to know more about where they got their data from, I suggest you contact the authors.
@ArtHarg @autkin @EUCommission
I've wondered for quite a while why vacuum manufacturers give the number of amps or watts their cleaners use as a unit of strength. They could (and probably do) make very inefficient machines that waste a lot of electricity just to get those numbers up. Vacuum cleaners should be rated by their suction power, in Pascals.
@sloanlance small form-factor "car vacuums" often advertise pascals. I haven't been shopping for big ones recently, so don't know for those.
@sloanlance @autkin @EUCommission Maybe it’s a silly idea, but they should be rated on something that is actually related to how clean they leave your house, given a certain amount of time and energy.
Aug 3, 2026, 1:28 PM@ArtHarg @sloanlance @autkin @EUCommission
That is also mentioned in that regulation 666/2013. 😉
@EUCommission I don't even get what is the point of the post besides pretending to be cool using the number of the beast.
@Enea90 the point is they made a regulation, people bitched about it, it did what it was intended to do and they’re reminding people of that because positive results usually get left behind and lost.
Plus, people who freak out about 666 are *loonies*
@tripleman not freaking out, just pointing it out.
@Enea90 I wasn't referring to you. There's a long tradition of religious lunatics claiming that the EU is the devil's creation.
@clickhere *citation needed
@tripleman Hah!
@clickhere @tripleman @Enea90 a few other things suck too. One example is Dyson.
✅ Is pro-Brexit.
✅ Brexit happens.
✅ Leaves Britain.
England must be so proud of that guy.
Literally nobody I know cared about that. Who ran to you crying about this? Some vendors?
@agowa338 @EUCommission You missed the hysterics of Brexiters?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-rees-mogg-vacuum-cleaners-b2091362.html
They milked this and every other nonsense to fool the credulous. If you don't know any credulous voters you're fortunate but my guess would be that the AfD supporters contain many.
It's surprising but I'm not in the UK and this wasn't really a topic here in Germany.
And AfD mainly focuses on migration issues when shitting on the EU. Esp. The lack of unified rules and "all coming to us here in Germany while the EU forbids us to get rid of them." and similar shit.
@agowa338 @EUCommission I visited Germany during the extended Brexit debates in the UK and found my German friends generally well informed about it, even watching British parliamentary debates as a form of after dinner entertainment. Of course, they were fluent in English and well-traveled.
Migration and lies and misinformation about it is a hot button for the far right everywhere, from "eating cats and dogs" to allegedly getting preferential treatment.
Well yea, we did that, but I still don't recall anyone giving a shit about a stupid vacuum. We probably just cared so little that we missed it entirely then...
@agowa338 @EUCommission Well, it was hard to keep up with the torrent of lies. The vacuum cleaner guff was a popular example of the "EU's faceless bureacrats' control freakery".
The British prefer no regulation where possible. Thus, on the morning of the Grenfell fire in London the Conservative Party had a meeting scheduled to plan a bonfire of building regulations (hurriedly cancelled). They're now making up for it with a massive increase in building regulations, esp for tall buildings. 🙄
@agowa338 "We" may be be your bubble. People in Germany knew about it and it was nearly a meme joke like the "norm of curved bananas".
@agowa338 It was everywhere in Social media, and in German media, too, connected to Brexeteers.
@samueljohnson @EUCommission
@agowa338 @EUCommission People, at least in my country, did. It caused a small shitstorm.
But this isn't the point of this point.
@EUCommission Tell 'em it's impossible. Then stand back.
@EUCommission
Even 1600W is generous. Decent 500W vacuum cleaners existed in 1960s!
The high power and noise was marketing. As unnecessary as a USA V8 engine eating 3x the fuel of car just as good for A to B and maybe better.
Next ban the overlarge SUV and have a special licence showing need for trucks.
Aug 3, 2026, 1:13 PMNot just overlarge. Also overweight! They have changed the law for max weight on cars in favor of these tanks, otherwise people needed a truck drivers license...
Nice example of how crooked lawmakers think, @EUCommission
True, they just need a target!
And I once read that the power reduction on vacuums caused the biggest power saving of all law measures.
@EUCommission Get rid of chat control
@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu EU comission tomorrow: "Let's chuck more money in the power guzzling datacenter pit!"
@EUCommission
Nice job there. Can you also please make smart home devices to obligatorily implement fully offline mode with the same functions as cloud functions? So that european sensitive data doesnt need to leave our homes (to china)? Nobody needs saving houselayout or video from vacuum cleaner to cloud really...
If all other problems are solved, you may start regulating the power of devices used for a couple of minutes every other day at most.
🙄
@EUCommission can data centers use a maximum of 1,600 watts as well please 🙏
Aug 4, 2026, 7:28 AM@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu
Also, vacume cleaner producers had figured out that consumers were sensitive to "NUMBER BIGGER" and advertised how many watts of power their vacuums used as "this one is the most powerful, this is the one you want!"
This incentive caused them to make increasingly inefficient machines in order to make number go up. That trend was broken by this EU law, to the benefit of all.
Yet another instance of anecdotal evidence of how capitalism doesn't benefit us.