Smart washing machine can ‘read’ your clothes

March 12th, 2012

The smart washing machine knows when to separate your whites from darks, but will it find the missing sock?

There’s the fridge that tells you when you’re low on milk, the oven that counts calories for you, and now there’s a washing machine that knows what type of material it’s cleaning.

NXP Semiconductors, headquartered in The Netherlands, has recently unveiled a Smart Washer that can read information about a fabric’s type and color from RFID-tagged (radio frequency identification buttons) buttons on clothes. It uses the information to help you avoid ending up with a pile of pink clothes and one red sock.

The washing machine's brains do the thinking for us

It also ‘reads’ the fabric to set itself for the most efficient washing program. How much water, at what temperature and the length of the cycle can all be determined by the machine based on what has been thrown in.

The energy smart washer also features a very low standby power, consuming less than 10 megawatts in standby. It’s power consumption can also be monitored, encouraging consumers to operate the machine when there is not as much demand on the energy grid.

By using a specially enabled smartphone, the washing machine may also be remotely checked for maintenance and firmware updates.

Appliances were once developed to reduce manual labour; the automatic washing machine was a revolutionary appliance for the 1950s housewife, freeing up hours of her day. Today, appliances are designed to reduce our mental workload.

The machine was revealed earlier this month at the Embedded World show in Nuremberg, Germany.

Keri Algar

Having once had to sit on the washing machine to stop it from bouncing into oblivion, Keri is today delighted with the new (smoother running) technologies that make housework easier every day. A self-confessed lazy-bones, Keri seeks out quirky inventions that ease the human workload, such as the robotic vacuum cleaner (wow). And as soon as someone figures out a Jetsons-like self-cleaning house, she will happily lay her pen to rest and retire from appliance journalism. Until then, her pick is a fridge that will tell her smartphone when it's time to pick up more beer on the way home. Magic.