IFA, the world’s leading consumer electronics fair, recently wrapped in Berlin, and this gadget is one of our top picks for futuristic home appliances most likely to change our everyday lives.
We can all agree that the worst part of doing laundry is folding, but smart sensors in home appliances may make folding laundry obsolete.
According to Wall Street Journal, Seven Dreamers Laboratories Inc. (in collaboration with Daiwa House Industry and Panasonic) has developed a new laundry machine that relies on sensors to fold garments intelligently.
Gadgets with Smart Sensors: Meet “Smarty Pants” Laundriod
The machine, which is about the size of a refrigerator, took a decade to develop. The folding robot, called “Laundroid”, is equipped with “smart sensors” that analyze the shape of the garment to determine how to fold it. The sensors are even smart enough to differentiate between a shirt and a pair of pants, making it possible to fold each appropriately.
Laundriod may be a smart sensor machine, but it’s still a little slow; it can take up to ten minutes to fold a single garment.
Although Seven Dreamers Laboratories has not released the expected price of Laundroid, it is expected to be in the range of $700 and $850 to stay competitive with similar machines like FoldiMate, and is set to hit the market in 2019.
FoldiMate is Faster, but not One Size Fits All
This Japanese innovation, however, is not the only device of its kind being developed. Earlier this year, a California-based Startup FoldiMate announced its own laundry folding machine with smart sensors that will hit the market next year and reportedly folds faster than the Laundroid. Although FoldiMate has not released details about how their machine works, smart sensors similar to Laundriod’s are part of the system.
The machine is about the size of a domestic washer and will cost between $700 and $850.
While the FoldiMate may fold faster than the Laundroid, it’s the main drawback is its inability to fold very small items or very large garments.
Any parent knows that having kids means running the washing machine pretty much constantly, and folding is always a tiresome task. Self-folding laundry machine technology is still immature, but it is a good start to helping liberate us from the frustration of folding our socks and undies.
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