My time saving hack: Don't buy/wear white clothes. I have black socks, and no white shirts. I can do my laundry in one load. Saves me about 50 minutes from the eliminated load, plus any inefficiencies from waiting to switch the loads.
The biggest time-sink for me (and something I'd consider spending money to have removed) is folding/sorting/putting away the clothes. I have a bad habit of keeping clean clothes in the hamper and moving the dirty ones to the floor, just because I don't bother to spend the 15 minutes folding my clothes.
Because I don't mean to keep the clean clothes in the basket. I plan on putting them away, but I don't get around to it, and then the clean clothes get wrinkled to the point where I don't bother putting them away - I just put them in the wash with the dirty clothes from the floor.
I'm thinking of moving to more hangable clothes (button up shirts, etc.) so that I can skip the folding step.
That is interesting that they could not find a way to reduce the costs to an acceptable level. Especially since their products seem to be 2-3x more expensive as the next viable alternative.
Interesting idea, although I am not sure this is a big existing problem (it's convenient, but not by leaps).
I think the bigger problem that needs a solution is the steps that are needed after the washing, that still require manual labor: folding, hanging, or just flattening or simply flattening them as we lazy ones do. Since no matter how much you want everything to be wrinkle free, they never come out that way.
If I can have a fully automated ironing|hanging|folding machine, that would hit the sweet spot for a lot of folks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMnNHA_GrT8 there is that, but still requires you to lay the cloth flat (I want zero labor).
The first time I'd ever seen one of these things was in Dubai at a hotel/apartment. I'm surprised they aren't proliferating through Asia given the limited amount of space but I figure give it time.
Incidentally, the cost on these washer dryer combo's aren't excessively high... in fact probably just a relatively small premium above what a good washer or dryer cost.
I see what you are going for, but I don't see what you save in practice. I've heard of something similar with dishwashers, where rich folk will have multiple dishwashers and just move clean dishes to the dirty washer, never actually putting them away and saving time.
But in this case, if you leave the clothes in the baskets they just get wrinkled and look like crap. Rich people don't like to look like crap, so they still have to fold and put them away. So all it saves you is loading/unloading some clothes in and out of washes, and since highend machines are side loaders these days, it's pretty easy already.
The Idea is mostly have a machine that cleans and drys to save time. The whole multi basket idea is for storing dirty clothes -- not for storing clean clothes. Clean clothes would still need to be put away in drawers or hung up.
1. It seems to ignore the idea that some clothes need to be put on hangers so they don't wrinkle.
2. Not everyone tumble-dries everything (some clothes shrink, and all clothes wear out faster when tumble-dried -- that blue lint in the filter is your clothes wearing out)
3. How does a horizontal tumble-dryer work? The "tumble" part requires gravity.
Once your clothes are dry you hang them as normal. The idea isn't a new way to store clean clothes. The main point of the idea is that you know when you need to do laundry (see through baskets) and you do it in one go (wash and dry).
You would be paying premium for baskets (as happens w/ anything that fits in a product. E.g. Ink cartridges, car parts) for the benefit of speeding "throw cloths in machine" wich usually takes 2seconds on my top feeding cleaner/dryer machine.
now, taking the clothes out and ironing them... I will still have to do w/out any change to the process
The biggest time-sink for me (and something I'd consider spending money to have removed) is folding/sorting/putting away the clothes. I have a bad habit of keeping clean clothes in the hamper and moving the dirty ones to the floor, just because I don't bother to spend the 15 minutes folding my clothes.