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LAS VEGAS — Can R2-D2 practice this? (Would R2-D2 want to do this?) CES 2017 brings us a robot that automatically folds your laundry. It'due south Foldimate, the brainchild of a US-Israeli company of the same name. A typical laundry hamper of clothes tin can be folded in about three minutes. A human has to clip each slice of laundry on two hooks, so step back equally the shirt or towel is drawn inside and a system of rods and rollers straightens and folds the laundry ane piece at a fourth dimension. It's then deposited in a tray at the base of the machine.

Foldimate CEO Gal Rozov says the visitor hopes to accept working prototypes available later this yr. The price would be about $800, more or less. Whether it'due south a robot, appliance, or something else, it's intriguing.

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How Foldimate works

6 FoldiMate Mockup pngFoldimate is near 2-thirds the size of your washer or dryer. The user, perhaps a teenager convinced to assist with chores, simply hangs or clips the shoulder area of the shirt on two hooks and steps back. The device pulls the shirt in. A series of rollers and arms that as well move upward-down-sideways straighten and fold the particular of wearable.

Optionally, the device tin can spray the habiliment with a wrinkle-reducing agent or fragrance. It's not completely easily-off later on clipping the item. You have to button a shirt before handing off to Foldimate. Information technology likewise can't handle big items such as a beach towel and mayhap not loose-fit XXL athletic shirts, for instance. However, most shirts, undershirts, T-shirts and pants should fit into the auto-folder. Socks are also small-scale to be folded. Clipping the detail takes about 5 seconds, automobile-folding ten seconds, and de-wrinkling 20-30 seconds. Price has not been set, merely it would probable exist $700-$850 for the principal unit, $200-$300 for the de-wrinkling accompaniment.

Don't count your chickens 'til they're hatched

Rozof showed off Foldimate at CES 2017, and had also shown it off half dozen months ago. Rozof says more than months of testing will be required until Foldimate has a working prototype, to be followed past production units. While the company showed a total-scale model, it was a non-working mock-up, and then no clothes were drawn into the machine and no folded clothes were placed in the stack at the bottom.

If and when Foldimate works and comes to market, potential buyers face one more trouble: where to stick it. At 28  x 32 x 31 inches, it needs to sit on a table, perhaps on a dryer that doesn't milk shake too much. Not every laundry room, let lone laundry closet, has that kind of space bachelor. Still, everybody who saw the device at the Showstoppers media upshot walked away believing they could find a use for Foldimate, if they could detect space for Foldimate.