Most individuals find laundry work repugnant. And if you hate folding your clothes, there are machines to help you do that easily. In fact, most of the time people spend on laundry goes to folding and ironing the clothes and putting them away. With Foldimate, you will be able to use the time completing other tasks. A entry level company, Foldimate, has introduced a machine of the same name into the market that will come into play immediately you run your clothing through the washer and the dryer. The machine starts by de-wrinkling your clothing and then folding them for you.
The manufacturer has made the folding machine to fit into any room nicely. Its ergonomically designed clipping technology which can fold your blouses, shirts and pants from age 5 to the XXL adult size. The fast-folding ability of this machine allows the user to feed many items continuously while the machine folds them simultaneously. The smart robotic properties allow it to adjust its folding methods depending on the type of cloth, the user’s preferences and the size of the clothes.
According to the manufacturer, they designed the chick appearance after realizing that most of their customers are planning to use the cloth-folding appliance in their spare rooms, bedrooms and living rooms. According to Gal Rozov, the founder and CEO of Foldimate, they realized that the product did not have to resemble a real appliance because most individuals do not have adequate space in their laundry rooms. And those who do might not want to fold their clothes in the laundry room.
About the developer
Gal Rozov is among the people who hate folding clothes. But unlike most other people who complain about the task, the software developer decided to use his programming knowledge to develop a laundry-folding robot. Rozov spent two years researching the efficient design in Israel and later moved to California where he started the FoldiMate Inc.
He spent another four years developing the product, but in the year 2016 he came up with a prototype robot he nicknamed Foldimate. He unveiled it during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2017. The 66-pound robot was around 2/3 the size of the average laundry machine and could easily fit above a dryer or washer. Moreover, the machine has the ability of de-wrinkling and infusing fragrances into your clean, dry clothes.
How Foldimate works
To start the garment folding process, the user has to clip the garments on the Foldimate’s horizontal rack and press the button indicating the type of clothing, such as a shirt or a pair of pants. The robot determines the thickness, size, the sleeve length to adjust its settings accordingly. It then transports the clothing into its main chamber where the rollers and rods will straighten, fold and flatten the garment into the right shape.
Depending on the thickness of the fabric, the machine can fit around 10-30 clothes at a time and will take 10-30 seconds to fold each piece. Its optional de-wrinkling built-in steamer adds an extra 10-20 seconds per garment. That might sound slow, but considering that a robot that the University of California Berkeley developed in 2016 (which took 20 minutes to fold one towel), the clothes folding machine is fast.
The inner operation of the Foldimate sounds fascinating. First, the product draws the clipped cloth into its inner chamber where several mechanisms flip, fold and flatten the clothes robotically into shape. Moreover, it subjects clothes into a treatment similar to Whirlpool Swash that consists of steam, fabric softeners and perfume. The result is neatly folded and expertly layered clothes that the user can place into the wardrobe directly. The machine is swift and can tackle loads of clothing thrice as fast as you would do when folding the clothes manually.
The machine has several limitations. Even though it can fold your blouses, shirts and pants easily, it cannot handle the small garments like socks, baby clothes, and the undergarments. The same applies to everything that is on the bulky side such as sheets or hoodies. Therefore, you will have to fold several items the old-fashioned way.
Furthermore, Foldimate promises to fold your things within 10-20 seconds but it will work on each garment at a time. That means you are unlikely to save any time if you cannot multitask, which is impossible when waiting for the clothes to fold. Despite the few limitations, the machine has earned enormous interest, mainly due to the viral promotional video, which has been watched for over 7 million times since the launch of this machine in the year 2016.
A foldimate review the key features
- Can only handle the medium sized garments such as pants, shirts and towels
- It cannot fold the large and small items like bed sheets, socks and underwear
- It has a clip capacity that ranges between 15 and 20 garments depending on the size and thickness of the fabric
- It takes around 10 seconds to fold a single item and 20-30 seconds to complete the de-wrinkling process
- It measures 28 inches by 32 inches by 31 inches (71cmx81cmx79cm) and has a 66 pounds weight (30KG). The dimensions are closer to those of the typical home clothe dryers
- It runs on a standard 110V/220V electrical power supply
The competitors
Rozov is not the only person working to automate the time-consuming and tedious chore. Seven Dreamers, a Japanese startup, has worked to come up with a similar clothing-commercial laundry folding machine known as the Laundroid. The machine, launched during the CES too, comes with a drawer to allow the user to place several garments at a time.
The Laundroid picks each garment at a time, scans it to identify the location of buttons and the collars and completes the process by folding it neatly using built-in sliding plates. Even though that might sound easier than the process involved in the Foldimate machine, the Laundroid is larger than your refrigerator and will take 5-10 minutes to fold a single garment. Moreover, it is price is above $2,700.
Conclusion
Even though Foldimate will never put your clothing away neatly after the folding, you should appreciate the work and time the manufacturer invested to provide you with a machine that will eliminate a job, which most people hate, from your weekly schedule. And if you are planning to own a Foldimate machine, you should be ready to spend an amount between $700 and $850 clothes folding machine amazon. If the dewrinkling feature sounds great to you, you will have to spend another $200-$300 in addition to the treatment capsules.
