Laundroid – A Laundry Folding Robot Launched at CES 2017
Nobody in this world likes to do laundry. Even after you have washed it and dried it you still have to fold the clothes and put them away. The Japanese have got a solution for this. Shin Sakane, the Japanese inventor received $53 million from partners, including Panasonic Corp., last month to advance the Laundroid. It’s a robot Sakane is developing to not only wash and dry garments but also sort, fold and neatly arrange them.
Concept
Shin Sakane’s previous inventions include an anti-snoring device and golf clubs made of space materials. The refrigerator-size device could eventually fill the roles of a washing machine, dryer and clothes drawer in people’s homes. Laundroid was designed to resemble the mysterious objects in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey that brought technology to prehistoric humans, and the project was originally code-named Monolith.
Laundroid is integrated with image analysis, A.I, and robotics as the core technology. The data from the IoT network will be transferred to seven dreamers original server, to provide satisfying customer service. From combining the followings it will constantly learn and improve its performance.
Process
- Step 1: Load all your washed & dried laundry into the Insert box then press start.
- Step 2: Then Laundroid will fully automatically fold all the laundry.
- Step 3: When finished take out the folded and sorted laundry.
Users will still have to do some tasks, such as partially buttoning shirts, ensuring clothes aren’t inside out, and bunching socks before putting them inside the machine. This is because even the best machine-learning apps can’t figure out how to fold a pair of socks.
Communicate via Wi-Fi
Each item takes about 10 minutes to fold, which is attributed to the time necessary to scan each part of the clothing and communicate via Wi-Fi with a central server. The company is working to get the folding time down to 3-to-5 minutes but said the robot was designed to be used passively while users are doing something else or out of the house. With Laundroid, users won’t have to clip clothes onto the machine.
You can toss up to 30-40 pieces of clothing into the drawer in the bottom. Laundroid is then supposed to be able to sort through what’s inside and get to folding. Its built-in AI and image analysis distinguish among clothing like t-shirts, pants, and even underwear. It isn’t able to fold socks, though.
Laundroid App
The robotic arm inside Laundroid picks up a single item at a time and spend the next 5 minutes or so folding it. It isn’t very fast, but it’s better than doing it yourself. Seven Dreamers also has a companion app for both Android and iPhone for remote access to the bot.
The countless knowledge accumulated into the database will find the most suitable folding style.
As more information is gathered into the database its performance will also increase.
Shipping in 2018
The company has started accepting pre-orders for this year. Once a manufacturing plan has been finalized with partners. The first few units will ship by 2018 and cost between $700 to $850.
In addition to this Laundroid unit, the company is planning to introduce a custom version for hospitals and nursing homes in 2018, as well as an all-in-one washer, dryer, and laundry folder in 2019.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.