Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 198 posts

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

#61

Post by jfk13 »

Swizec wrote: post #17

At last modern fabrics don't require ironing anymore. You can put away a dryer's worth of clothes in less time than it takes to watch a quarter of an episode of Game of Thrones. It's really not that hard (for a human) Industrial scale though ... but can AI really be cheaper than a skilled minimum wage professional? You know someone who has folded thousands of t-shirts and really gotten it down to an impressive speed.…

> At last modern fabrics don't require ironing anymore.

Would those "modern fabrics" be the ones using synthetic fibres that contribute thousands of plastic microparticles to the water each time they go through the wash?

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

#62

Post by scarejunba »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49
jetrink wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't comment on it out of politeness, but they do notice. Then, consciously and unconsciously, they draw negative inferences about you. They might suspect that you are not well organized or that you are lazy. You are free to be unbothered by that fact, but their reaction to your appearance is outside your control. It is a slight headwind in your life that makes your interactions with people more difficult tha…

Surround yourself with better, less shallow people.

It's just marketing. For $50 and ten minutes a week for the local cleaners you can appeal to both. Why close off your market?

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

#64

Post by DanBC »

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

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

#65

Post by scarejunba »

duxup wrote: post #5

This fits into the category I saw a reporter describe as "Things 20 something engineers wish their mom still did for them." Similar to juicero (spelling), Amazon proposal to deliver packages inside your house....etc.

I mean, that's the point, right? Getting rid of tedious work is a win. Every new task we automate liberates billions.

The lever on "things mum did for me" is long.

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

#66

Post by saiya-jin »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #21
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.

> A washing machine and dryer cuts this to a couple hours a week. Maybe if you're doing a single person's laundry. Our family laundry is a job for more than a couple of hours.

2 people in their 30s, spending maybe 1h/week together - I don't count the time machine runs since that's cca free time. Just loading it, unloading, putting on dryer, putting back to shelves. Actually its probably less than 1h. And I do intense sports cca 1x/day on average, so plenty of stuff and fiancee is pretty active too.

Who the hell does ironing these days? If you put it on the dryer properly, no ironing required. I work at the bank so formal dress 5 days a week, and the only requirement are self-ironing shirts (or whatever is the name). The rest can be achieved by drying/folding smartly. Unless of course you iron everything, including socks and underwear, then there is no help.

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

#67

Post by DanBC »

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…

I don't know about where you live, but in the UK we have launderettes that do service washes. You dump your clothes in bags, and dump those bags at the launderette and pay for them to wash and dry and fold your clothing. You can pay extra for ironing. You can provide your own detergents and softeners[1] or they can use theirs.

You have to be careful because some of them are a bit clumsy and will boil the clothing, or melt it in a too hot dryer.

[1] don't use fabric softeners.

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

#69

Post by DanBC »

neilv wrote: post #46
anonytrary wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are, but that doesn't bother me much and no one has ever commented on it. Heck, I've even worn shirts inside-out and people barely notice. They're probably too busy thinking about their own appearances...

My quality of life improved when I started hanging almost all of my clothes, on coat hangers in the closet, and got rid of my dresser that required tedious weekly folding. Almost everything is wrinkle-free, at least in my climate, if I hang it immediately out of the dryer. (I avoid clothes that need to air dry, given that I've been living in bedbug-prone old university neighborhoods with shared laundry machines.) Soc…

> I don't use fabric softener

Fabric softeners are also pretty bad for the clothing, and may contribute to excess microplastic shedding.

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

#70

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

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…

Buy the same socks in batches. If they are all the same color/shade you won’t need to spend time matching socks. Dump them into a drawer, and every time you need two socks, you grab two, done.

You could also extend the not-washing period if you buy more clothes. The more you have, the longer until you run out of clothes to wear.

Post reply on HN