People cannot wait to pay $800 for a laundry-folding robot
For every problem, someone is trying to sell a solution. No matter is
too trivial to be monetized, even folding laundry.
FoldiMate, a California-based startup, plans to sell a robot costing
between $700 and $850 whose primary purpose is to fold your freshly laundered
shirts and pants twice as fast as you could do it yourself. It can also
“de-wrinkle” them with steam, and “perfume” them as it goes. It’s a pricey
answer to a routine chore, yet folding laundry is evidently so odious that the
FoldiMate is attracting serious attention, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The company, which includes several engineers with robotics experience,
says next year it will take pre-orders, and it expects the first units to ship
in 2018. About 50,000 people as of this writing have registered to be notified
when pre-orders begin, though that doesn’t offer a clear indication of how many
will actually purchase it.
A commercial version has been available since 2014, according to The
Telegraph. The UK newspaper polled readers on whether they would pay 𧼐 to
never fold laundry again. Currently, 84% of respondents selected the response,
“Shut up and take my money.” Just 16% went with, “What a ridiculous waste.”
The FoldiMate’s purpose, price tag, and drawbacks have elicited some
sarcastic reviews. “Lazy people, rejoice,” reads the headline of a piece from
Reviewed.com, which said it wasn’t convinced the “first-world time saver” was
worth the asking price. The FoldiMate can’t handle underwear or oversized
items, such as bed sheets, and items to be folded need to be clipped on
one-by-one. All were among the “many reasons”not to buy it, according to TheNextWeb.
We’ve reached out to FoldiMate to see how the company responds to
critics that say its robot is an overpriced fix for a minor nuisance.
FoldiMate may illustrate the obsession among startups to find a
technological improvement for everything, a mission that’s spawned a range of
“smart” products, such as cups and diaper bags that just tell you what’s inside
them.
Yet some people do find folding laundry so tedious that they would
spend almost $1,000 on a machine to do it for them. One person at Quartz said,
“omg i would buy that thing.” Another replied that it was “obviously genius.”
FoldiMate isn’t the only player in the high-tech folding space.
Laundroid, by Japan-based company Seven Dreamers, is a folding machine about
the size of a refrigerator, and unlike FoldiMate, you just dump your clothes in
it. It takes several hours, but it will do most of it, though socks give it a
hard time. No price or release date has yet been announced for the sale of
Laundroid.
Source: http://qz.com/700500/people-cannot-wait-to-pay-800-for-a-laundry-folding-robot/
Vocabulary Words:
1. Trivial - (adj.) Of little value or importance
2. Launder - (verb) Wash, or wash and iron, (clothes or linens)
3. Odious - (adj.) Extremely unpleasant repulsive
4. Drawback - (noun) A feature that renders something less acceptable
a disadvantage or problem
5. Tedious - (adj.) Too long, slow, or dull: tiresome or monotonous
Discussion Questions:
1. Would you buy the product mentioned above? Why or why not?
2. Do you think inventions like this will make household chores easier?
Why do you think so?
3. What household chore do you hate doing the most? Why?
4. If you could have a robot to do all your chores, what would you
choose for it to do?
5. Do you have a weekly routine for doing chores? Tell me about it.
