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CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

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Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#231

Post by emdowling »

bigiain wrote: post #178
Merad wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can vacuum my floor by myself If you're in the HN demographic that likes to live in small urban apartments then you may not see value in automated vacuuming, but believe me they are filling a need for many people. My 68 year old mom decided to get one last year, prompted by discussions with several of her friends. She loves it so much that she's become something of a Roomba evangelical - last I checked she's talk…

I get a real kick out of getting home after the vacuuming robot has been doing my housework while I'm out :-) I'd love a similarly simple way to press a button and have my laundry done - I've seen combined washer/dryers, but I'd love something that sorted and folded everything for me... (Interestingly, I live alone, and do not have any motivation to buy a dishwasher.)

I live alone and have a “half width” dishwasher. It’s amazing at saving me time but also clutter. No dirty dishes on the bench top. The thing is on every night. Research has also shown it uses far less water and energy than hand washing.

By far the best investment I ever made for house cleaning though is a cordless Dyson vacuum. It’s mounted on the wall and I end up vacuuming (5 mins max) every day so it hardly feels like a chore.

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#232

Post by limaoscarjuliet »

Joeri wrote: post #162
sixdimensional wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm not a product designer or engineer, but I feel like I have an idea for #1, and I'm interested in doing it, even for myself. Maybe it's something like "dishwasher v2.0", I 'm not sure. I basically want a standard set of plates, bowls, cups and silverware, which is designed to work with an automated washing box that has slots (or maybe holders) for each to be deposited inside. The idea is, you use the ite…

One life hack I’ve seen and always wondered about that gets you close is having two dish washers and using them as your cupboard. You use stuff from the clean one and put away into the dirty one. Once the dirty one is full, run it and switch directions.

I do just that and it works nice for 4 people family

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#233

Post by indy »

iandanforth wrote: post #215
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FoldiMate Is this a joke? A machine that, when you take a piece of laundry and after de-tangling each piece (fixing inside-out/sleeves/etc) and then orienting it properly, insert it into the machine in a specific way, will fold laundry in "a few" minutes. All this for the low price of $1,000 USD and they claim to deliver in two years (which we all know will slip). If this machine let me dump a dry bucket of laundry…

I know the guy behind FoldiMate a little bit. I've met him at trade shows. One thing I have to point out is that he has pursued this dream for years. Lack of interest, team, funding ... nothing has stopped this guy. It's a really hard problem and he keeps at it. I can't say I'm rushing out to buy one myself, but there's a human story here too, and I think that's been lost in the coverage.

Perhaps he could focus on folding towels and then sell the device to the hotel/AirBnB industry?

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#234

Post by rimliu »

cdoxsey wrote: post #137

The next 20 years will be a constant stream of half broken robots and ai systems. At least until we either get them to actually work or we figure out how bad they are and go back to using people again. It will be like setting up video conferencing, except for everything. Your car will go to the wrong place because it failed to account for a leap second, thus breaking gps. Your fridge will put itself in eco mode becau…

  > Your car will go to the wrong place because it failed to
  > account for a leap second, thus breaking gps.
I am taking a hard stance on this: if the car cannot drive without GPS then it is not autonomous.

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#235

Post by Ice_cream_suit »

BigJono wrote: post #196
bigiain wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I move my vacuum robot up and down stairs as needed. I'm not _quite_ lazy enough to buy a second one for upstairs (but I _have_ considered it, I use an inexpensive Chinese knockoff, not a brand-name-priced Roomba...)

Are the Chinese knock-offs any good? I just looked up the price of a Roomba. $600 AUD to start for the shittiest model :(

I have a couple of Aldi "robotic" vacuum cleaners. They are excellent.

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#236

Post by 35bge57dtjku »

iandanforth wrote: post #215
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FoldiMate Is this a joke? A machine that, when you take a piece of laundry and after de-tangling each piece (fixing inside-out/sleeves/etc) and then orienting it properly, insert it into the machine in a specific way, will fold laundry in "a few" minutes. All this for the low price of $1,000 USD and they claim to deliver in two years (which we all know will slip). If this machine let me dump a dry bucket of laundry…

I know the guy behind FoldiMate a little bit. I've met him at trade shows. One thing I have to point out is that he has pursued this dream for years. Lack of interest, team, funding ... nothing has stopped this guy. It's a really hard problem and he keeps at it. I can't say I'm rushing out to buy one myself, but there's a human story here too, and I think that's been lost in the coverage.

So he's insane?

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#237

Post by DeepYogurt »

bane wrote: post #5

Here's what I want robots to do: 1) Wash my dishes, dry them and put them away completely automatically. 2) Wash and dry my clothes, fold them and put them away completely automatically. These two things would save me hours of work per week. FoldiMate simply isn't even close to being good enough, but I'd be willing to spend about that much for a robot that could do #2. I can vacuum my floor by myself and greet people…

You can also just get two washing machines. Load all the dirties into one then run it and as you use them load them into the other. Bam. Clean dishes and no putting them away.

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#238

Post by rplnt »

Joeri wrote: post #162
sixdimensional wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm not a product designer or engineer, but I feel like I have an idea for #1, and I'm interested in doing it, even for myself. Maybe it's something like "dishwasher v2.0", I 'm not sure. I basically want a standard set of plates, bowls, cups and silverware, which is designed to work with an automated washing box that has slots (or maybe holders) for each to be deposited inside. The idea is, you use the ite…

One life hack I’ve seen and always wondered about that gets you close is having two dish washers and using them as your cupboard. You use stuff from the clean one and put away into the dirty one. Once the dirty one is full, run it and switch directions.

Or have a removable rack that you can pull out and slide into a cupboard. No need to have two machines connected to water, drain, and electricity. It works this way, more or less, in industrial settings. You have trays that go into dishwasher, and then go into storage racks.

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#239

Post by duncan_bayne »

baq wrote: post #229
bane wrote: post #5

Here's what I want robots to do: 1) Wash my dishes, dry them and put them away completely automatically. 2) Wash and dry my clothes, fold them and put them away completely automatically. These two things would save me hours of work per week. FoldiMate simply isn't even close to being good enough, but I'd be willing to spend about that much for a robot that could do #2. I can vacuum my floor by myself and greet people…

It says something when it's easier to land a ten story rocket booster than fold laundry...

That probably isn't true; it's just that the laundry thing is still a way down Musk's priority list :)

Re: CES Was Full of Useless Robots and Machines That Don’t Work

#240

Post by krzat »

solatic wrote: post #150
slfnflctd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an engineering standpoint, what you describe is likely actually possible to implement right now. It would be expensive as heck, but it should be doable. Meanwhile, no amount of money can currently buy you a robot that will completely do your laundry, because the problem has not yet been solved. The development of this stuff is not exactly intuitive.

Well, if the dumbwaiter idea is feasible, you'd just put the dirty laundry in the dumbwaiter, tell the dumbwaiter that it's dirty laundry (maybe provide further classification like "this is a white towel" or "this is a pair of blue jeans"), and wait for notifications from the dumbwaiter system to know when you can ask the dumbwaiter for your laundry back. Wondering if you could even build some kind of camera and some…

Well if you have a dumbwaiter, then you can just use some external service to do the washing.

Disregarding security and privacy, big apartment complexes with these dumbwaiter could actually work, with shared storage space and and laundry systems.

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