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Comment by yladiz | Hacker News Reader

At what point is it actually cheaper? Laundry isn't that expensive to do yourself, or to outsource if you really don't want to do it yourself.

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I'd pay $8k tomorrow for a bot that would 100% do my laundry. That means collecting it from the various dirty clothes hampers throughout the house, bringing it to the washer and dryer, operating the washer/dryer, folding and putting clothes on hangers, and putting them back into the dresser and hung up in closets.

For a bot that just automates an in-house laundry service that washes and folds? Not very interesting since it might save maybe 60% of the time, but practically zero percent of the mental overhead.

This seems like a step towards that I suppose. My house isn't configured to make it an option even if it was a fully-baked product, but if these ever get to the point of actually working without remote teleoperation I'd certainly be in the market.

Unless I was physically disabled, elderly, or otherwise unable to do my own laundry, I couldn't even fathom paying a robot (or a maid) to do it. I can maybe understand it if you don't have a clothes washer, and had to wash your clothes manually in the sink or tub or something, but with a washing machine, the machine is already doing 95% of the work! The rest is not difficult or time-consuming. Laundry isn't heavy, and it doesn't take specialized skill or concentration to put them in the machine, start it, or remove them. Not saying your wrong for wanting something like this, but just observing how different people can be with their priorities.

We have many kids and well, laundry is omnipresent. I would absolutely pay multiples of this to make the problem go away.

> but with a washing machine, the machine is already doing 95% of the work!

Not sure how literal you were here or if it's more a feeling thing to you: My washing machine takes 1-2 hours per run. I don't believe you (or anyone else) can do all other attached work in 5 Minutes, or anywhere close to it.

You're defining work as a function only of time, but effort should also be calculated in.

If you didn't have a washing machine, it would probably take more than 2 hours, and definitely take far more effort.

It's way less about the time of doing the thing, and much more about the mental overhead of having to remember to do the thing. And needing to do the thing at very inconvenient times because I forgot to do the thing or lacked motivation when I should have done the thing.

This goes for any recurring chore in my life. I love to garden, but watering plants is hell to me after the novelty wears off. I fixed this by installing an automated irrigation system. I get to do the fun bits mostly on my schedule to wind down when I feel like it (pruning, harvesting, staring at plants) and didn't sign myself up for yet another daily chore to do.

My wife is the opposite. She thrives on "chores" or routine simple items like this. She absolutely loves doing laundry to an absurd degree - kind of a zen moment in the middle of her day she can quickly spend 10 minutes here and there to get done. Same goes for cooking. I enjoy planning and creating elaborate meals I've dialed into "perfection" but take me an entire Saturday to accomplish a few times a year. She loves spending 30 minutes in the kitchen most nights to wind down after work - but really hates "big" projects of any type.

I imagine it has a lot to do with executive function. I enjoy large one-off projects (e.g. designing and installing an over the top totally overkill irrigation system) that are eventually "done" but fall apart on repetitive simple things that never end and just reset to be done X hours all over again. I like to have my "mental slate" clean when I wake up for the day, and I find I accomplish far more when I can configure my life in such a way.

As such, this robot as-is would be somewhat useless to me as I'd have to remember to hang up the clothes or walk them up the stairs to put away or whatever even with it. I'd get very little advantage for the spend.

The washing machine is the one that needs redesign to incorporate folding.

We can't even get to a washing machine that's also the dryer though. If it seems hard to get people to adopt even that new technology, then clothes folding is never gonna happen.

That is becouse those wash and drying machines are bad at drying the cloths.

If manufacturers are selling a defective product, that's on them. What I'm pointing out that the history of technological advancement isn't smooth.

really? you cannot _fathom_ the idea of paying for a robot to do something you, yourself are already capable of doing? someone should tell all these car manufacturers and the like that their cost-benefit analyses of using robots for work humans can do are completely off!

I do have a car, but I wouldn't pay for a robot to pick me up, carry me to the car and then chauffeur me around, unless I was physically disabled.

Buying a machine to do difficult, complex, or strenuous work is one thing. Buying a machine to load and operate the other machine seems... different.

You have a certain number of hours remaining on earth, and that number goes down forever until it reaches zero.

Get on the cross about... doing laundry, I guess? All you want but it's not crazy to want to maximize the amount of time you get to spend with novel, meaningful experience and minimize the amount of time you spend shuffling piles of clothing from one place to another over and over among the dozens of other mundane chores.

If you have the money, why not?

sometimes the mundane chores give me time to decompress and reflect on the novel and meaningful experiences

yeah, cool: "sometimes when i feel hungry it makes just makes me more grateful for food"... like, seriously? come off it... what a fucking stunting-qua-realitas stance

They're talking about a household chore and your post compares to an industrial production line. It's not like the Ford executives can walk into the laundry and assemble F-150s.

I take your point, but examples like a dishwasher or Roomba are the ones you should be using.

> machine is already doing 95% of the work!

See, I want 100% of the work to be done.

You’re not replacing the outsourcing it component though, you’re replacing a maid at home doing it for you. In home laundry services are a very different experience since you don’t have to also go pick up and drop off the laundry.

A service like that can be hundreds a month, so pay off period is on the order of years… which could be worth it.

...if the robot lasts years. Or the company, for that matter.

I doubt it will ever be cheaper than doing it yourself, like most things in life. The market is for people unable or unwilling to do it themselves.

Outsourcing can be difficult and expensive in many regions. The lack of an actual human might even be considered a benefit in some cases, such as nursing homes (although you have to weigh the benefits of human contact with the benefits of fewer humans spreading plagues).

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