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

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

#131

Post by glenneroo »

misterman0 wrote: post #38

I sometimes hold off washing my clothes for so long I end up wearing the same underwear two days in a row, then no underwear and very dirty socks, then no socks before I realize it's time to wind up the old washing machine. That's how much I hate washing. I wear every piece of clothing I have and at the end of a two month long washiless period I go to work looking a fool. And then after gaving washed my clothes I now…

You could also look at it from another angle - you are making your small contribution to the environment[0] :)

[0]: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-pla...

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

#132

Post by oliwarner »

sytelus wrote: post #85

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 cou…

> Folding arbitrary pile of laundry completely unsupervised is super hard computing and robotics problem

FTFY. And the business proposition isn't "limited", it's stupid. An attempt to throw technology somewhere it cannot compete.

The opportunity cost for that $16k is paying somebody minimum wage to fold clothes for you for over 2000 hours. That would last a family of four about 38 years (just folding). Cleaners, housekeepers, nannies, etc all offer this sort of service, and more. Cleaning, ironing, folding, putting away and because of the lack of skills, and the availability of people to do it, they usually can't charge that much for it.

This robot took up a ton of space, barely worked by all accounts, did untold damage to clothes that got caught, and didn't do any other part of the cycle. I don't know how you can call that a proposition. It's neat but it's not saleable.

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

#133

Post by glenneroo »

pjc50 wrote: post #82
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?

Recycling the water would actually be beneficial for our oceans[0].

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/24/18513393/avengers-endgame...

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

#134

Post by richeyryan »

bunderbunder wrote: post #110
solarkraft wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still saved a ton of time in comparison to how clean our clothes are.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's balanced out by having to spend more time shopping for clothes because all those repeated trips through the washer and dryer wear them out more quickly. A while back we got fed up with our apartment's laundry facilities, and switched to one of those Haier portable washer units, drying on a clothesline, and washing less often. At this point I'm almost annoyed with how much longer my clo…

What difference does your Haier make? I don't follow the effect it has. I'm from Ireland where using a washing machine and a clothesline is the norm and a drier is less common. I think I might be missing some of the context for your point

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

#135

Post by bluGill »

oliwarner wrote: post #132
sytelus wrote: post #85

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 cou…

> Folding arbitrary pile of laundry completely unsupervised is super hard computing and robotics problem FTFY. And the business proposition isn't "limited", it's stupid. An attempt to throw technology somewhere it cannot compete. The opportunity cost for that $16k is paying somebody minimum wage to fold clothes for you for over 2000 hours. That would last a family of four about 38 years (just folding). Cleaners, hous…

This version. It isn't ready yet. If they do a $2k robot that finds my dirty clothing on the floor and puts clean clothing in the correct closet/draws (my kids, wife, and mine...) and I'm interested. Laundry takes a lot of time, and paying someone isn't really cost effective.

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

#136

Post by gourou »

perfunctory wrote: post #115

I like the ending "It’s sad news for everyone involved, but maybe we don’t need an expensive Wi-Fi-connected machine to do our simple chores for us. After all, now we have Marie Kondo to teach us how to fold fitted sheets."

Marie Kondo's folding method is not the common way of doing it, the 3-way folding is not easy to master at first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpc5_1896ro

But yeah, 8 million views already.

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

#137

Post by bunderbunder »

richeyryan wrote: post #134
bunderbunder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's balanced out by having to spend more time shopping for clothes because all those repeated trips through the washer and dryer wear them out more quickly. A while back we got fed up with our apartment's laundry facilities, and switched to one of those Haier portable washer units, drying on a clothesline, and washing less often. At this point I'm almost annoyed with how much longer my clo…

What difference does your Haier make? I don't follow the effect it has. I'm from Ireland where using a washing machine and a clothesline is the norm and a drier is less common. I think I might be missing some of the context for your point

I'm not sure that it's really the key difference. The main thing is that its small load size, together with needing to line dry, encourages us to be more judicious about how frequently we wash our garments. I wouldn't be surprised if the way that it agitates turns out to be gentler, though.

Dryers are probably the worst of it. Every time you clean a lint trap, it's a demonstration of how much wear and tear they put on fabric.

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

#138

Post by winningcontinue »

oliwarner wrote: post #132
sytelus wrote: post #85

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 cou…

> Folding arbitrary pile of laundry completely unsupervised is super hard computing and robotics problem FTFY. And the business proposition isn't "limited", it's stupid. An attempt to throw technology somewhere it cannot compete. The opportunity cost for that $16k is paying somebody minimum wage to fold clothes for you for over 2000 hours. That would last a family of four about 38 years (just folding). Cleaners, hous…

well, you're assuming that its' only an hour of folding a week. It's highly variable for different people. But for families that do fold most of their clothes (and folding is the better way to store your clothes than just hanging it), many would spend over an hour doing it. My wife does most the laundry and we got two kids. It's a good half a day to clean all our weekly clothes, towels and sheets. There's a market for this product you put it in the exact way that explains why it failed.

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

#139

Post by Retric »

glenneroo wrote: post #125
solarkraft wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still saved a ton of time in comparison to how clean our clothes are.

Slightly tangential but on the other hand, washing clothes pollutes the oceans with plastic[0][1] i.e. washing more frequently causes more pollution. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/27/washing-clot... [1]: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-pla...

“Syntactic fibers” is a major limitation on that research.

100% cotton/silk etc clothes don’t have that issue.

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

#140

Post by eropple »

d--b wrote: post #120
islon wrote: post #93

While a "AI-powered laundry-folding robot" company files for bankruptcy there's a guy making money selling onions on the internet.

The guy selling onions on the internet is not make a ton of money from it, though.

So?

A more useful question is whether he makes enough.

Growth-at-all-costs is toxic.

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