If robots ever rise up and take over the world, we might look at laundry-folding assistants as the Trojan Horse that started it all.
The newest example is Isaac 0, a new home assistant robot courtesy of Weave Robotics. Isaac 0 is shipping out first to early adopters in the Bay Area this month for the low, low price of $7,999 up front, or $450 per month, according to Interesting Engineering. For that price, you get a robot that folds laundry. That’s it. Isaac 0 doesn’t do a single other thing. That puts it in contrast with other household assistant robots like LG’s CLOiD model, which folds laundry but also does other chores around the house on top of that.
On X, Weave Robotics founder Evan Wineland said Weave is focused on shipping robots for early adopters, not merely designing prototypes or concept products. The company’s goal is to “build useful robots that give people their time back, and ship them as soon as possible.”
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According to the Weave Robotics website, Isaac can be plugged into any wall outlet:
Isaac 0 is a stationary laundry folding robot, and it’s already in our first customers’ home less than a year and a half after Weave’s founding.
Isaac 0 can be installed in an afternoon and gets the job done from day one: plop it anywhere with a desk in your home, plug it into a regular wall outlet. Drop a load of laundry and walk away: Isaac 0 works for 30-90 minutes, and you’ll return to find clean stacks of clothes waiting for you.
Credit: Screenshot courtesy of YouTube / Weave Robotics
Credit: Screenshot courtesy of YouTube / Weave Robotics
Weave’s premise here is to get something into people’s homes while it works on a more advanced bot, dubbed Isaac, which will presumably be able to do more than just fold laundry. Isaac 0, meanwhile, is a stationary robot platform that can fold most types of clothing, though Interesting Engineering noted that it cannot currently handle bedding or clothes that have been turned inside out.
Interestingly, Isaac 0 might also occasionally be taken over remotely by a human for a few seconds if it encounters difficulty with its task. So, not only can it not completely handle your laundry needs, but it may not even do what it’s supposed to do totally autonomously. However, Weave does say that Isaac 0 is a “learning robot” that will get better with time.
If you’re in the Bay Area and have both a love of robotics and money to burn, Isaac 0 is there for you. If not, well, folding laundry isn’t that hard.
