Robot Furniture
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
To be honest, this seems like the Juicero of furniture: an expensive tech solution to a non-tech problem. The problem is solved for a fraction of the cost with a daybed that has storage underneath.[1] It is, after all, still a combination sleep/living area with storage room for clothes.
As someone working on a furniture solution for small spaces and with a history of professional furniture building, turning furniture into built-in moving electronics is IMO not the solution:
1. It increases the cost of the furniture to be out of the range of your customers, who are typically in a small space because they do not have a ton of extra money.
2. Good luck getting your landlord to approve bolting large furniture to your ceiling, and what do you do when you move?
The article sounds like this is a feature of the apartment (to help make up for small unit sizes).
"Inventor William Lawrence Murphy (1856-1957) began tinkering with hideaway beds while living in a one-room apartment in San Francisco in the late 19th century. He was falling for a young opera singer and courting customs at that time would not permit a lady to enter a gentleman’s bedroom. But according to family legend, Murphy’s limited finances and a strict moral code didn’t spoil his chance at love. His invention allowed him to stow his bed in his closet, transforming his one-room apartment from a bedroom into a parlor.
"The couple married in 1900."
> In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. In 1944, he was entangled in the device and died of strangulation.[15][16][17]
It's the prevalence of innerspring mattresses that's responsible for contemporary bedding being unwieldy. An innerspring mattress is constructed to predetermined form factor, and is resistant to folding or rolling or other mechanical ways of conserving space. Getting it out of the way means manipulating the entire unit as one, which absent a pulley system installed in your ceiling typically means rotating it onto a weak edge, where it can barely remain upright; this can be rectified by a platform that holds that the mattress in place while it is pivoted upright into a recess in the wall, in an established, if outdated design.
If you forego monolithic innerspring mattresses, you have vastly more options in moving bedding when it's not needed.
I personally think this is a great idea as ceilings are useless for the most part and that space can be used for something else - like storing the entire bed.
I would say they are underutilized. Ceilings are certainly useful for preventing rain from falling on our heads ;)
I guess it depends on how your house is made.
The only real alternatives I can think of are camping-oriented bed-rolls and hammocks. While they can be comfortable, they're clearly compromises: given the option, long term, most would choose a bed.
Humans lay flat to sleep. It's ideal to have a dedicated sleeping space. Hence, beds and bed rooms.
Make sure you're not trying to use foldable beds to solve problems of being unwilling to build your buildings higher to provide sufficient space for bedrooms, or if you're already looking at a high-rise area, sufficiently speedy public transport to allow people to come in from areas that have the space.
Haven't found anyone who actually sells beds that retract into the ceiling. https://resourcefurniture.com/ sells nicely designed but crushingly expensive murphy bed type things.
Anyone know where I can get a retractable bed set up for less than a thousand?
They also had a stripper pole in the front room, which was great for parties. But it was the bedroom with the hanging bed which really impressed me.
I'd be more worried about DoS[0] attacks against the cloud service that prevent me from using the app to call down my bed and other furniture. Or someone hacking in and pulling my bed up with me in it. What a nightmare that would be.
[0] Denial of Sleep
i ended up taking it down due to concern of having all of that weight above me
when a huge mass is suspended above you the potential gravitational energy becomes very palapable
There is no way this will see mass adoption, if that's their goal I think they should do more customer research.
this accomplishes the same and doesnt require any motors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWaO5TJS00
"I wanted to sit on my couch, but it fell and nearly killed me... damn robot furniture."
For one thing, it's got 4 straps. If any 3 straps or any two opposing corner straps are intact, then it should probably not fall down. So there's some redundancy.
Aside from that, use a worm drive[1] between the motor and the pulleys. As long as the gearbox is intact, the weight of the furniture won't be able to turn the output gear.
If you want more assurance than that, put some kind of extra brake or lock on the pulleys or drive shaft. Maybe a pawl[2].