A laundry treating apparatus includes a tub, a drum rotatably disposed inside the tub, a rotator that is rotatably disposed on a bottom surface of the drum and includes a pillar extending inside the drum and a plurality of blades spaced apart from each other along a circumferential direction of the pillar and inclined with respect to a longitudinal direction of the pillar, a motor for driving the drum and the rotator, and a controller that controls operation of the motor. A method for controlling the apparatus includes sensing an amount of clothes in the drum, sensing a washing load of the clothes including a moisture content from water supplied into the tub, and sensing a cloth material of the clothes. When the washing load corresponds to a normal washing load in the first cloth material sensing operation, a first washing process is performed according to the washing load.

A washing machine and a method for operating the washing machine having a suds container for receiving water, a rib-free drum, which is rotatably mounted in the suds container, for receiving laundry, a motor for driving the drum, and an open-loop or closed-loop control device, wherein the method has a pre-ironing phase (Vb) for pre-ironing of the laundry located in the drum, during which phase steam is conducted into the drum and the drum is moved by means of the motor into a right-left pendulum motion, the pendulum rhythm of which is controlled using open-loop or closed-loop control by means of the open-loop or closed-loop control device in such a way that the drum is at least intermittently untouched by the laundry.

A washing machine appliance includes a tub and a rotatable basket therein. A method of operating the washing machine appliance may include rotating the basket at one or more first speeds prior to a water extraction operation and obtaining a first set of power measurements. The method may also include performing the water extraction operation. The water extraction operation may include rotating the basket at a second speed greater than the one or more first speeds. The method may further include rotating the basket at the one or more first speeds after the water extraction operation and obtaining a second set of power measurements. The method may also include determining a load type of the load of articles based on the first set of power measurements and the second set of power measurements.

A laundry washing machine and method automate the selection of various operational settings for a wash cycle based in part on color composition data collected from a load of articles using a color detection sensor. In some instances, the capture of color composition data is triggered by detected weight changes sensed by a weight sensor as the load of articles is added to a wash tub, and is based in part on the detection of a stable weight in the wash tub for at least a predetermined duration. In addition, in some instances, color compensation data may be used to characterize a load of articles based in part on a color decision algorithm that assigns pixels in the color compensation data to different color categories.