When entering the appliance assets, select "Rental Real Estate Property" on the first screen. Then select "Appliances, carpet, furniture" on the 2nd screen. The program does not ask you for the convention because it already "knows" the correct convention to use, based on your acquisition/in-service date.
Also note that the SEC179 deduction is not allowed for this. I know you see the option available in the program. That's because if you were renting "commercial" rental real estate, then SEC179 would be valid. But it's not valid for "residential" rental real estate. Besides, the 100% Special Depreciation Allowance allows basically the same thing anyway.
Overall though, I expect you'll find that depreciating the appliances separately isn't going to make a penny of difference to your tax liability anyway. But you most certainly can do that if you want to. It does have the potential to become a paperwork nightmare if/when one of those appliances breaks and you have to replace it. Also, if you purchased the house with those appliances already there, then whatever cost basis you assign to the appliances, you have to subtract from your cost basis of the property.
