The future is here: Companies unveil laundry-folding robots

These days, we have self-driving cars and houses are smart—so why not laundry that folds itself? There’s new technology that could save you time on this everyday household chore.

It sounds like a dream, “I wish there were robots that could fold my laundry.”

But it could soon be a reality. At least two companies, Laundroid and Foldimate, are promising laundry-folding robots by the end of 2017.

FOX 13’s Sorboni Banerjee learned about the prototypes from their company websites.

Foldimate not only folds, but it also steams out wrinkles. Laundry comes out all pressed and folded. It's being developed by an American company in Israel.

The target price for consumers is $850 dollars, and they're already taking preorders on their website.

The machines will work by analyzing each garment they take in and figuring out its ideal folding shape. With Foldimate you have to clip clothing to the front to help the machine recognize what it is, and then the machine pulls it in and folds it. Laundroid is Wi-Fi connected and learns from other Laundroids; the networked robot brain will connect to a server that’s constantly learning the best folding methods. They're calling themselves “the first laundry folding bot.”

Laundroid was invented in Japan - and has 90 million invested in its development. It’s described as being about the size of a typical refrigerator. It will have an insert box and four small drawers and handle up to 30 pieces of clean clothing at a time
According to the New York Times though, it has to think about each item for ten minutes at a time - so folding laundry could actually take a full work-day.
The Laundroid is estimated to cost about $2,000.
In the meantime, Whirlpool is planning to introduce an all-in-one washer and dryer that automatically decides on proper soap portions and then reorders wirelessly from Amazon when it’s empty. The cost of that one is $1,700.