Do I need more than a dishwasher tablet?

I use the all in one tablets but also rinse aid and salt because my machine has red lights and I twitch far too easily

No, you do not need anything other than a dishwasher tablet. You have soft water therefore no limescale in eg your kettle, dishwasher, washing machine, shower hea. You can if you feel the need use the dishwasher freshener stuff.

I use a bowl of hot soapy water and then rinse the items before putting them to drain. I have never, ever owned or wanted a dishwasher.

When I got my first dishwasher it came with a testing kit which was to test our water supply for hardness. Our supply came out as very soft water and the kit stated that we don’t need to use salt .
We use rinse aid and Fairy capsules and our dishes come out sparkling .

We also have lovely soft water here in Birmingham, so I use the dishwasher tablets but add in a rinse aid liquid.
I don't think we need anything else when living in soft water areas.

Very hard water area here .
The engineer who installed our dishwasher advised us to use all in one tablets and extra salt and rinse aid.8 years old and no problems use every day just use a dishwasher cleaner every month.

I live in a soft water area. I’ve never used salt or any other additive. I use supermarket own brand tablets and find them perfectly good at usually half the price of the branded ones. I use the basic plain tablet not the coloured ones.

Ours ( neff) must land in the top basket as there when I open the door to add something at the start, so don’t think that is right.
I did clean the machine with soda crystals sprinkled on the bottom as I had no machine cleaner

Really good water from the lakes, so no just use fairy ultra

I diluted a 3in1 tablet in hot water so I could soak gransons’ socks. I then put a tablet in washing machine & they came out sparkling!

My dishwasher lasted 43 years. On occasion I would use salt, nothing else, we live in a soft water area, guess I'll do the same with the new machine.

We have soft water here. One Finish dishwasher tablet + Finish Rinse Aid + Finish Salt do the job. Dishwasher is Miele. I clean the (greasy) filter every week and run the dishwasher on empty every eight weeks.

We have a water softener so could probably use ordinary tablets plus rinsaid but it's less trouble to use the all-in-one version.
If you use standard tablets plus salt and rinsaid t's important to set the water hardness setting if your machine has one, then it will only dispense what is needed. I think you can get the figure from your water company.

Hard water in Hampshire, so an all in one and salt.

Here I have medium soft water, and use tabs , salt and rinse aid, Tesco or Aldi premium. Get really good results, and helps any limescale build up, and helps prevent white scale on glasses.

I use the tablets with everything but fin I get better results if I use rinse aid too.

I use the ‘complete’ tablets, but my dishwasher has lights that show me when I need to refill the Rinse-aid and Salt.

We have hard water here.

Mine too Margiknot. I've been told by two engineers that the tablets don't contain enough rinse aid or salt for the machine to operate efficiently and not using them will shorten the life of the machine.

Also there was some kind of urban myth going around suggesting you should just throw the tablet into the bottom of the machine and not put it in the dispenser. Pretty much all manufacturers agree that this is not good for your machine.

Our dishwasher refuses to work (literally sits and flashes it’s lights) if it runs low on salt or rinse aid! We have very hard water.

I add salt and rinse-aid. Recently, my rinse-aid seems to be running out fast. I wonder if there’s a hole in the dispenser?

I live in London and find the 3 in 1 tablet is insufficient, I have to add rinse aid and salt.

I use the Fairy Platinum Plus. My dishwasher manual saves that you don’t need salt or rinsaid if you use a 3 in 1. It’s a JL make.

I live in London so hard water I buy the all in one tablets with everything added already.

It really depends where you live .
My parents refused to use rinse aid and salt and wondered why their dishwasher was giving them a poor result .
I also live in a hard water area and have to
use rinse aid and salt .
I also run the dishwasher with a cleaner occasionally .
At the moment , our water smells
unpleasant -so half a lime or lemon goes in the cutlery basket as well .

If you go onto BBC Sounds and search for Sliced Bread (radio 4), there was an episode a few weeks ago all about dishwasher tablets! It’s very interesting. I had not realised that, if you use the all-in-one tablets, you don’t need to add rinse aid! Feel really thick now!