FoldiMate, Inc. was a California-based company developing a robotic laundry-folding machine founded in 2012. Their clothes folding machine was aimed to enter the market by the end of 2019. In 2021, the company permanently ceased business.
History FoldiMate, Inc. was founded on September 6, 2012, by Gal Rozov, an Israeli software engineer who decided that folding laundry was a tedious chore that could be done effectively by a robot. In 2010, Rozov quit his job as a software developer and product manager and spent two years developing his laundry-folding device. In 2012, he moved to the United States to work with a robotic team in Silicon Valley. By 2013, he had a patented technology. In 2016, after an initial round of investment, he produced the first prototype. The prototype presented at CES 2017 generated much interest.It's 2018 and robots still won't do our laundry , Popular Science
The company exhibited an updated prototype of Foldimate at CES 2018."The 9 weirdest gadgets", Time.com
In January 2018, BSH Hausgeräte expressed an interest in partnering with Foldimate.
Overview
The FoldiMate is slightly larger than a standard washing machine. According to the developers, it can fold a full wash in less than 4 minutes.Laundry folding machine neatly stacks full wash in 4 minutes, Business Insider
The user clips the piece of clothing on two hooks and the item is pulled into the machine. Then a series of rollers and arms moves in all directions to straighten and fold it.The $800 laundry-folding robot for those who don't have a housekeeper , ExtremeTech The machine can fold shirts, tops, trousers and dresses, but not small pieces of clothing like underwear or large items like sheets. The folded items are returned in a stack through a window at the bottom of the machine.
Previous versions included anti-wrinkling technology and fragrance features, but the product was redesigned and simplified with the aim of readying it for the market by the end of 2019.
See also
Domestic technology Laundroid, another laundry folding machine Domestic robot Home automation
References