Seems like the classic situation when new technology must be motivated by “do the same stuff more easily” whereas the real impact is “do entirely new stuff that you never thought of before”. For me folding clothes seems like missing the point (i get you have to start somewhere though)
I remember watching the PR2 fold clothes back in the Willow days. It was impressive but also like watching paint dry. Touching it with a feather was also unwise or the laundry might catch fire. 🤣
I’m really impressed with the videos I’ve seen lately but at the end of the day. I would love to see a company aim for a product using this tech.
I’m seeing a “washer/dryer/folder” combo machine where the cloths go in dirty and come out folded.
Form factor might be a problem so maybe just “dryer w/ an auto fold feature” is the right way to do the market fit?
I’m still quite skeptical that we are gonna have multiple purpose Rosie’s roaming our houses in my lifetime. (Prove me wrong kids!).
Single purpose Rosie’s like Roomba are much easier to create, productize and sell for sure. 👍
Robots folding clothes is one of my all-time favorite topics for the exact reason you mention- I am bad at it. When I successfully fold a shirt, I feel like a genius. But, more than that, I don’t want to be good at it. I have a creative mind. I want to devote my time and energy to writing and thinking. If my clothes are clean and relatively wrinkle-free, it is a win. A machine that could fold my clothes for me would be the most significant advancement since we stopped beating clothes against rocks to wash them. I am counting the days until I can welcome a robot- or two- or ten into my house. I am ready to share my space with the bots. Laundry folding is robot work. Creative thinking? That is human work.
It also kinda validates the thesis on which these companies raise billions, i.e. that their TAM is immense, literally all human labour, and so it can easily return the money to the investors if it works
Seems like the classic situation when new technology must be motivated by “do the same stuff more easily” whereas the real impact is “do entirely new stuff that you never thought of before”. For me folding clothes seems like missing the point (i get you have to start somewhere though)
I remember watching the PR2 fold clothes back in the Willow days. It was impressive but also like watching paint dry. Touching it with a feather was also unwise or the laundry might catch fire. 🤣
I’m really impressed with the videos I’ve seen lately but at the end of the day. I would love to see a company aim for a product using this tech.
I’m seeing a “washer/dryer/folder” combo machine where the cloths go in dirty and come out folded.
Form factor might be a problem so maybe just “dryer w/ an auto fold feature” is the right way to do the market fit?
I’m still quite skeptical that we are gonna have multiple purpose Rosie’s roaming our houses in my lifetime. (Prove me wrong kids!).
Single purpose Rosie’s like Roomba are much easier to create, productize and sell for sure. 👍
I am very optimistic that we will have many multi-purpose robots roaming the house actually!
Which companies would you say are closest at the moment.
Also… I will be very excited to be wrong about this!
Publicly, weave, potentially 1x.
A couple companies are aiming for this product.
Robots folding clothes is one of my all-time favorite topics for the exact reason you mention- I am bad at it. When I successfully fold a shirt, I feel like a genius. But, more than that, I don’t want to be good at it. I have a creative mind. I want to devote my time and energy to writing and thinking. If my clothes are clean and relatively wrinkle-free, it is a win. A machine that could fold my clothes for me would be the most significant advancement since we stopped beating clothes against rocks to wash them. I am counting the days until I can welcome a robot- or two- or ten into my house. I am ready to share my space with the bots. Laundry folding is robot work. Creative thinking? That is human work.
Yeah I'm with you, i absolutely could not fold a shirt to save my life.
It also kinda validates the thesis on which these companies raise billions, i.e. that their TAM is immense, literally all human labour, and so it can easily return the money to the investors if it works