It is the computer age. We can make a phone call, play a game, save a report, and send data to Japan with about four words to our smartphone assistant.
Why are we still folding laundry?
Answer: There is just no app for that. But there could soon be a machine and, failing that, there are new strategies.
All the newest clothes dryers helpfully steam, de-wrinkle and freshen but somehow when they come out of the machine, they are not folded. According to the Wall Street Journal, most of the major appliance makers have not solved this problem. Same with unloading dishes into cabinets; it doesn’t happen.
During a lifetime, people spend 18,000 hours (375 days) doing laundry and half that time is manually handling each piece and folding.
A Tokyo-based company is developing the Laundroid to address an annoying gap in the market. The size of a refrigerator, the Laundroid takes several hours to fold a load of laundry. Drop shirts, pants, and towels into the machine and overnight they are folded.
Another strategy being developed in California, FoldiMate is a folding machine about the size of a washer. Users clip a dozen items to the outside of the machine. Folding takes 10 seconds per garment. Dewrinkling takes 30 seconds per garment.
Neither the Laundroid nor FoldiMate is on the market yet, but plans are to start production in about a year.
