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Robots That Serve Beyond The Vacuum
Tim Brown of Mobile Robotics writes "While everyone has been debating the abilities of new robotic vacuum cleaners and their varying price tags, Siemens has quietly announced they have developed a 'Dressman' robot that will iron your clothes! (my least favorite household chore). Rumoured to be priced at US$1700 it seems expensive for an iron. But it appears that the Roomba's best work might be that it is ushering in a new era of innovation in home products. (Note very cool picture with the article.)"
More or less, I'm your average geek. I telecommute, but my state of dress on any given day is not much different than when I worked in an office. That being said, how often do men really need to iron their clothes?
I don't recall ironing a single piece of clothing since my job interview more than four years ago and that is the only time I've used an iron in my twenty-seven years. Hell, I only even own an iron because an ex-girlfriend needed it for her clothes - and I needed it for an upcoming project which including using an applique.
Still, if you're a snazzy dresser and you wear clothing that tends to need ironing and you're a single person, I suppose this is a decent product. Especially if you have the money to burn.
It really seems that this device (which reminds me of those punching-bag exercisers I've seen on television a couple times) is geared more toward the garment pressing industry than a home-user.
Personally, the only robot I'm interested in is a sex-slave android and I don't think we'll be seeing any of those in my lifetime.
How about instead of spending $1700 on a robot, just take your clothes out of the dryer and hang them up quickly enough that they don't have time to wrinkle?
It works for me...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
is a robot that will pickup, wash, dry, iron, fold, and put away your clothes.
As well as wash, dry, and put away your dishes.
O yeah,
Mow the lawn and wash the car while its at it.
That way I can use all my spare time exercising.
Now, I agree with this comment (there's no way that's a robot)
Why not? A robot does not need to walk or talk. Automotive welding and industrial assembly robots are proof of this.
but what is it about those devices is it that makes them a robot?
The ability to perform a task without continuous human control. But I don't think that bomb disposal units count as robots because a human being is constantly in control of it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
seems like this would handle the sides, the back, and other flat parts fairly well, but I don't see how it would do the slightly more complex areas (collar, the front edges). Those parts would flap in the air, and probably would stay fairly wrinkled when it's done. I mean, sure, I would love for something to handle the areas around the buttons better, but this looks like you'd have to bust out the iron to redo those spots. And if you spent 1700 and needed to do a little more ironing, that's just totally not worth it.
It's shows a lot about human psychology to ask what is a proper robot. The mechanical slaves we have today (washers, cars, microwaves) really aren't credited for the incredible amounts of drudgery they save us from.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
But no - it's just hardware that does housecleaning... :-(
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
but there are actually businesses that will wash and iron your shirts for you, and they will even fold them (imagine that!). If you need an "emergency shirt" that you can just wash yourself, you can get a no-iron shirt, too.
And for vacuuming, you could always hire someone (but, unlike a robot, a cleaner will raise eyebrows at leftover pizzas and Playboy magazines).
Not all innovations toward laziness or progress are one way. Something that is designed for the consumer market may easily be applied in other more useful fields, and vice versa, like the material in excersize pants being used for cooling systems, the material in shuttle windows being used for fogless ski goggles, computers being used by people other than scientists... Who is to say that this innovation won't be useful in other fields down the road, it uses quite a few pieces of technology which could easily be applied to industry and NASA.
Yet another signature that refers to itself. The irony and humor is dead.
A lot of people mention the rarity of ironing shirts, but while the Slashdot crowd may not, I know engineers, accountants, and businessmen who wear freshly washed and ironed shirts each and every day. If they make $50000 a year working 2000 hours (40 hours, 50 weeks), that's $25/hr. Say they spend 5 minutes ironing a shirt every busines day (~250), that's $520 of life they waste every year ironing. While still not enough to justify having something iron for them, especially as no one measures their life relative to how much they'd make on the job, there is enough savings to warrant consideration by people who iron in bulk, like Dry Cleaners. It may even be useful in a Laundramat (Probably not, but who knows?).
Yet another signature that refers to itself. The irony and humor is dead.
The problem with home clothes steamers is that they don't actually get rid of wrinkles, but rather uniformly wrinkle the clothes; albeit with smaller wrinkles.
Wouldn't the result be the same if one used this "robot"?
It would appear it is a combination of the weight of an iron, or press, and the heat that presses out the wrinkles, not just the heat alone.
And what about autonomy? I expect an apliance that is in the category of "robot" to be able to take a pile of clothes and end up with a bunch of shirts on hangers. After setup, Roomba needs little assistance to get the job done where this device needs an operator for every shirt.
If this is a robot, then so is my dishwasher, clothes washing machine and even my blender.
TW
One thing I thought right away when I read the article was - will the shirt look right without creases? I think a proper crease is an important as the smoothness of the material when considering a well-ironed garment. With the way it just inflates under a sirt, you'd get a smooth shirt but no creases anywhere!
They make a good point about the material lasting longer though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not quite: a superball interacts autonomously and quite physically with its environment. You also need to require that it has a specific goal, like helping people into and out of bed.
Read the article again, no creases at all. :(
:) But, for $1700, it'd better do more than half of my ironing needs.
It's a $1700 glorified hair dryer. Judging by the last line that says "ironing dummy can be washed in the washing machine", I'd have to guess the whole thing is a fabric on a frame. You put your shirt over the cloth on the frame, and turn it on with a rotary knob (no sensor to detect dry). It takes up to 15 minutes to do one shirt. It doesn't load itself, it doesn't take the now dried and wrinkle free shirt, and fold it. It's simply a blow dryer. Worse yet, a blow dryer that can only do shirts. My girlfriend has dresses, skirts, pants, shirts, etc, etc, that she irons. I have pants and shirts that I'd theoretically iron. Ok, I still do the wash, dry, hang up before they get cold method.
This thing is far from being a robot. I'd rather call my electric toothbrush a robot. It has just as many functions (on/off).
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Man, for $1700 this thing better do military creases.
I've always loved the idea of home robotics, but at $1.25 a shirt, I can get 1360 laundered at the local dry-cleaners, and get then with heavy starch applied, hung on a hanger, and put in a plastic bag.
Assuming one shirt per day, everyday -- and some days I do just wear a T-shirt -- that's more than three and half years worth of ironed shirts, with my labor limited to taking them to and from the cleaners -- and with no need to wash the shirts myself.
The idea of inflating a dummy and drying the shirt from the inside out is great "outside the box" creativity, and I give the inventor credit for it. But that method doesn't crease the sleeves properly, it doesn't iron the collar, and I'm thinking that it may result in the placket at the back of a dress shirt bulging out at precisely where you want it creased.
So it's a great idea that doesn't really substitute for ironing, and is too expensive. Much as I'd like to encourage this, it's a solution in search of a problem.
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At least in North America, the house voltage is 120 with most outlets fused or breakered at 15 amps. The most you'll get out of those outlets before tripping a breaker is ~1800 watts. To get the minimum required wattage of 2150, you'll have to use one of the 20+ amp outlets in the laundry room for the electric dryer or in the kitchen for the electric stove -- assuming you have such a device and/or an available outlet. Or, you'll need to upgrade an outlet to 20 amps which will cost money (you'll need to hire an electrician unless you like to monkey around with the fuse/breaker box and know exactly what you're doing).
A 20 amp outlet, for those that don't know, is shaped somewhat differently than a 15 amp. If up to code, a 20 amp plug should not fit into a 15 amp outlet, though a 15 amp plug would fit just fine in a 20 amp outlet.
So, unless you're one of the lucky ones that have outlets in your home wired for 20 amp service, it sounds like you'll be SOL if you buy this fancy iron.
From what I can tell, this "robot" can't give you creases in your shirt sleeves. Speaking as someone who has worn both a "real" uniform and the "corporate" uniform, I can tell you that a single, razor-sharp crease in the proper position on the sleeve is an absolute necessity. People who have worn uniforms notice this right away. Even those who have not themselves worn uniforms can tell you someone looks "better" when their shirt sleeves are properly pressed, even if they cannot articulate just why that is.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.