$8K laundry bot still needs human help

"Nobody likes folding laundry, but you really have to hate it to spend $7,999 on a robot that'll fold it for you with a whole heap of limitations - including company employees getting the occasional peep at your tough-to-fold unmentionables. Head over to Weave Robotics' homepage and you'll see videos of a Johnny 5-esque robot zipping around an apartment, putting things away and tidying up like a helpful robo-companion that really doesn't want to be disassembled."

"That sort of autonomy is complicated, though, and Weave doesn't actually sell such a product. Instead, it's selling a wall outlet-powered variant that will only take care of a single chore. Meet Isaac 0, the laundry robot that costs as much as a first-class plane ticket from San Francisco to London. "Laundry is a universal time sink that's taken for granted to be human-only work simply because an alternative hasn't existed," Weave said in an announcement of Isaac 0's availability this week."

"For example, it can't handle everything. Weave mentions "tshirts, long sleeves, sweaters, pants, [and] towels," are in its wheelhouse, along with undergarments and pillowcases. Large blankets and bedsheets are currently out of its expertise, and the company said it's constantly expanding its abilities. Even with that limited list, Isaac 0 still can't do its job without plenty of mistakes. "Because it's an early, first-of-its-kind product Isaac 0 won't be perfect all the time," Weave admits."

Weave Robotics offers Isaac 0, a $7,999 wall outlet-powered robot that folds a limited set of laundry items. The device targets t-shirts, long sleeves, sweaters, pants, towels, undergarments, and pillowcases while excluding large blankets and bedsheets. Videos show broader autonomous tidying, but the sold product handles a single chore and makes frequent errors. The company frames laundry as a bounded, measurable task suitable for commercialization, but Isaac 0 sometimes requires human teleoperation for brief 5–10 second corrections and is admitted to be imperfect. The product raises privacy concerns due to occasional employee visibility of sensitive garments.

Read at Theregister