AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy • Hacker News Board

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#81

Post by ccozan » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:11 AM UTC

sauravt wrote: post #53

Someone should make a solar powered washing machine that runs off the grid and doesn't need to be fed with a water supply (recycles its own water usage, use UV beams to kill germs) Only external inputs are detergant and sunlight, output is dirt and heat.

That is doable. The cloths we wear and send to wash are nowhere that dirty as it was 50 years ago. Some smart filter would actually recycle the water.

Power is a different thing, you could connect it to whatever eco-friendly source you have.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#82

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:23 AM UTC

sauravt wrote: post #53

Someone should make a solar powered washing machine that runs off the grid and doesn't need to be fed with a water supply (recycles its own water usage, use UV beams to kill germs) Only external inputs are detergant and sunlight, output is dirt and heat.

Why? Why have its own compact set of expensive recycling infrastructure and storage when you have the grid for that?

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#83

Post by return1 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:39 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #64

peter303 wrote: post #16

You have to admit the washing machine is one of wonders of the modern world, yet taken for granted. Until they were invented, a wife or servant essentially devoted most of a whole weekday to washing clothes. A washing machine and dryer cuts this to a couple hours a week. Clever people seek to cut this time even further.

But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. In the past people just didn't wash their clothes as often. Now people will wash their clothes after a single wear, and it's still mostly women who are doing the washing in families. https://twitter.com/TimHarford/status/1113123861602713600 https://twitter.com/DeconinckKoen/status/1054097445351776256

"washing" is a euphemism for pressing a button, though

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#84

Post by return1 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

btw, the ironing is by far the worst aspect of dealing with laundry. Is folding even an issue?

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#85

Post by sytelus » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:50 AM UTC

Folding arbitrary pile of laundry completely unsupervised is super hard problem. I actually have more faith in solving self-driving before that :). It seems company was Japanese, used loan model (as opposed to VC funding) and went bankrupt probably because creditors went after them. Their machine cost $16,000. The article describes scenario at CES where someone tried giving it black t-shirt but apparently machine couldn't see it and got jammed! It also occurs to me that many people hang their cloth with hangers in closet instead of folding. Business proposition seems to be bit limited.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#86

Post by DanBC » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:55 AM UTC

return1 wrote: post #83

DanBC wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. In the past people just didn't wash their clothes as often. Now people will wash their clothes after a single wear, and it's still mostly women who are doing the washing in families. https://twitter.com/TimHarford/status/1113123861602713600 https://twitter.com/DeconinckKoen/status/1054097445351776256

"washing" is a euphemism for pressing a button, though

No, for many people "washing" is a euphemism for gathering clothing from various rooms, sorting it into different loads (hot wash, cool wash, whites and colours), loading the machine with clothing, loading detergent (and buying the detergent), pressing the button (while selecting a program that doesn't destroy the clothing), taking the clothing out of the machine and putting it in the dryer or hanging it on the clothes line, taking it from the dryer / line and ironing it if needed, then folding it if needed, then distributing it back around the various rooms to include hanging if needed.

The fact that we dismiss this work mostly done by women by saying it's just pushing a button is probably sexism.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#87

Post by leowoo91 » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 10:59 AM UTC

L_226 wrote: post #63

I feel like folding clothes in an approximately rectangular shape is the wrong approach. Rolling clothes into cylinders is potentially easier to design for, and it is pretty effective for storage too.

https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#88

Post by belorn » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 11:00 AM UTC

JJMcJ wrote: post #28

peter303 wrote: post #14

I dread laundry. Its one of signs you are still alive and soiling clothes. Some males never do laundry their entire lives. Their mothers do it until they marry. Then their wives and daughters.

Men who can't do laundry - even more pathetic than men who can't cook. If you can afford to pay for it, OK, but you should know how.

Every healthy person should be able to fulfill their basic needs. Have a job so they can afford to have a roof over their head and buy food, cook so they can feed themselves, and operate basic household equipments.

Gender roles splits those so that only one gender is responsible for any given need. It might have been a useful optimization method in the past but not now in modern society.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#89

Post by tropdrop » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 11:13 AM UTC

return1 wrote: post #83

DanBC wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. In the past people just didn't wash their clothes as often. Now people will wash their clothes after a single wear, and it's still mostly women who are doing the washing in families. https://twitter.com/TimHarford/status/1113123861602713600 https://twitter.com/DeconinckKoen/status/1054097445351776256

"washing" is a euphemism for pressing a button, though

This is a gross oversimplification, especially washing in a family (> 1 person).

1. Sorting - when you buy clothing, do you take handling instructions into account? Accounting for handling is very hard! Good luck shopping online, hunting through instruction tags hidden on sides of clothes, all while keeping price reasonable. I do not like shopping, so I choose the first thing that looks ok and is comfortable - I am often left with unpleasant surprises when laundering. Some dryclean only, some handwash-only, some fine with washing but no dryer, some with dryer ok but tumble-dry only.

2. Do you have an in-unit washer? I do not - I traverse 7 flights of stairs to communal apartment laundry room.

3. Do you need to use quarters for the machine? If yes, this takes an extra trip to bank beforehand.

4. 7 flights of stairs again to transfer some of the clothes to a dryer, others ...

5. ... Need to be line-dried and hung, somewhere.

6. Finally, the clothes that could be normally washed must be folded and put away, not stuffed into a drawer (even simple t-shirts get wrinkled this way).

"washing" is not just pressing a button.

Re: AI-powered laundry-folding robot company has filed for bankruptcy

#90

Post by belorn » Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 11:23 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #86

return1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"washing" is a euphemism for pressing a button, though

No, for many people "washing" is a euphemism for gathering clothing from various rooms, sorting it into different loads (hot wash, cool wash, whites and colours), loading the machine with clothing, loading detergent (and buying the detergent), pressing the button (while selecting a program that doesn't destroy the clothing), taking the clothing out of the machine and putting it in the dryer or hanging it on the cloth…

Almost every single step of those are optional depending on the people in the household.

For us everyone is responsible to bring their clothes to the wash baskets and sort based on temperature.

Very few modern clothing require cool wash, and in my household we don't own any.

Very few white clothes and discoloration from washing whites with colors is so minimal with modern clothing/washing machines so we don't bother. The only exception is when cleaning white table cloths in order to remove stains.

Non-dryer clothes are avoided if possible.

We don't work at places which require ironed clothes.

Washing is thus for us: loading the machine (located in the apartment) with clothing from one of the two baskets when they are full, filling the detergent ball, selecting 40 or 60 depending on which basket is used, putting it in the dryer when the washer alarm goes off, taking it from the dryer when the dryer alarm goes off, and finally everyone collects their clean clothes. We could argue how common this is, and if there is a cultural difference here between US and Sweden, but I don't have any data beyond my own experience.