Skip to main content

The startup behind the world’s first laundry robot has folded

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Laundroid, so long, we barely knew ye. While first announced almost three years ago, then shown off during CES 2018 to a fair bit of both intrigue and derision, the company behind it — Japan’s Seven Dreamers — is bankrupt. Reports indicate that the company may have racked up as much as $200 million in debt while struggling to get a product to market.

The Landroid never made it past vaporware. Instead, the $16,000 price tag and frustratingly slow folding apparently was a price too high to make it viable. The company was a no-show at CES 2019, even as competitor Foldimate was back for a second year, and with a target price of under $1,000.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to our shareholders, customers, business partners, and related parties,” the company said in a statement posted to its website.

While the Laundroid appears to be dead, the company says it will still operate in the healthcare sector. Seven Dreamers is working on a nasal insertion device to help prevent snoring called Nastent and the company said it will continue to develop that product “for the foreseeable future.”

Seven Dreamer’s failure might be a cautionary tale to companies looking to bring robotics into the home. While we’re increasingly buying robot vacuums, mobs, and depending on virtual assistants of all kinds, just like everything else we’re not going to break the bank for it.

The company did have grandiose dreams of eventually becoming an intricate part of the modern wardrobe; after all, it could even organize clothes by each family member by tracking what passed through the machine. However, the awfully slow folding times and sometimes buggy operation made a $16,000 price tag look all the worse.

Foldimate, to its credit, does have a working prototype that can fold a shirt in five seconds and realizes that no one’s going to buy it if it isn’t priced right. Sure, you’re still doing a lot of the work, but at least it doesn’t require a mortgage.

But there’s still the question if it’s just a solution in search of a problem, and whether we all just need to stop being so lazy.

Editors' Recommendations

Ed Oswald
For fifteen years, Ed has written about the latest and greatest in gadgets and technology trends. At Digital Trends, he's…
They strapped a paintball gun onto a Spot robot. Now the internet has the reins
MSCHF Spot Robot

“I'm going to shoot you a link in the chat,” said Daniel Greenberg. “Just open it on your phone, and go into controller mode. Use the image on the screen to kind of guide you. But there's also an onboard camera.”

Thirty seconds later, I was remote-controlling a Spot robot -- one of the quadruped, canine-inspired robots built by Boston Dynamics -- as it charged around an empty art gallery performance space in Brooklyn, thousands of miles away, firing paintballs from a .68cal paintball gun mounted on its back. As ways to while away time during lockdown go, it certainly made a change from Zoom calls.

Read more
World’s most advanced robotic hand is approaching human-level dexterity
robot hands getting better holding pen

Remember when the idea of a robotic hand was a clunky mitt that could do little more than crush things in its iron grip? Well, such clichés should be banished for good based on some impressive work coming out of the WMG department at the U.K.’s University of Warwick.

If the research lives up to its potential, robot hands could pretty soon be every bit as nimble as their flesh-and-blood counterparts. And it’s all thanks to some impressive simulation-based training, new A.I. algorithms, and the Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand created by the U.K.-based Shadow Robot Company (which Digital Trends has covered in detail before.)

Read more
To build a lifelike robotic hand, we first have to build a better robotic brain
Robot arm gripper

Our hands are like a bridge between the intentions laid out by the brain and the physical world, carrying out our wishes by letting us turn thoughts into actions. If robots are going to truly live up to their potential when it comes to interaction, it’s crucial that they therefore have some similar instrument at their disposal.

We know that roboticists are building some astonishingly intricate robot hands already. But they also need the smarts to control them -- being capable of properly gripping objects both according to their shape and their hardness or softness. You don’t want your future robot co-worker to crush your hand into gory mush when it shakes hands with you on its first day in the office.

Read more