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If the sky's the limit, I'd like kiva for my home. Maybe a dumb waiter would open in the wall with a little standard sized basket. I'd name what I'm storing, l

If the sky's the limit, I'd like kiva for my home. Maybe a dumb waiter would open in the wall with a little standard sized basket. I'd name what I'm storing, like tennis racket or snow shoes, and it would whisk it away to a storage space under the house or in the walls somewhere. I ask for it by name, the house brings it back to the portal. An uncluttered house where I can have anything I use once a year within seconds. Hoarding by way of Marie Kondo. Possibly a gross dystopian consumer fantasy, but still. If the house could just post anything you haven't used in two years on Craigslist, then we'd really be in the future.

slfnflctd 9y ago
From an engineering standpoint, what you describe is likely actually possible to implement right now. It would be expensive as heck, but it should be doable. Meanwhile, no amount of money can currently buy you a robot that will completely do your laundry, because the problem has not yet been solved. The development of this stuff is not exactly intuitive.
- R_haterade 9y ago
  It's been implemented to some degree by Cliff Stoll for his klein bottle business. Or rather, he started a warehouse in his crawlspace. Same difference... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
- solatic 9y ago
  Well, if the dumbwaiter idea is feasible, you'd just put the dirty laundry in the dumbwaiter, tell the dumbwaiter that it's dirty laundry (maybe provide further classification like "this is a white towel" or "this is a pair of blue jeans"), and wait for notifications from the dumbwaiter system to know when you can ask the dumbwaiter for your laundry back. Wondering if you could even build some kind of camera and some kind of clear washer and dryer that could track individual pieces of laundry such that the laundry of multiple tenants could be washed together to reduce wait times. Considering the trend for new construction is to have luxury housing, while problematic in general for much-needed affordable housing, maybe it represents an opportunity to develop a system like this, whereby a developer installs the dumbwaiter in the walls, sets up a dumbwaiter floor, and is the primary investor in a startup that builds out the dumbwaiter tech. As the developer builds out more buildings, and the dumbwaiter can do more things, buyers will pay more for units with the dumbwaiter, and the developer can possibly even license out the dumbwaiter tech to other developers.
  - slfnflctd 9y ago
    My expectation would be that getting the laundry into and/or out of the average commodity washer & dryer might be harder than you think. Robotic dexterity is very limited, and clothing can move and morph in all kinds of unexpected ways. I'm sure a custom industrial-scale solution could be designed, but that still leaves the problem of folding. I suppose a compromise might be partial folding, like having the machine gently 'stack' the clothes in a return basket to minimize wrinkles.
  - krzat 9y ago
    Well if you have a dumbwaiter, then you can just use some external service to do the washing. Disregarding security and privacy, big apartment complexes with these dumbwaiter could actually work, with shared storage space and and laundry systems.
deleted 9y ago
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lobster_johnson 9y ago
Not an appliance, but there are a bunch of "valet storage" services like this. In NYC there's MakeSpace, which takes photos of your stuff that you can use to request delivery, should you need a particular item. They photograph and deliver the whole box, though, as far as I remember, not individual items.
- shostack 9y ago
  Any suggestions for ones that cover the Peninsula? I'd love something smaller than PODs where I could have a lockable box delivered, load it or unload it, and have it taken back, all at the push of the button. When autonomous cars fully arrive, I'll bet something like this takes off, particularly in areas with small homes like the Bay Area. You could charge a subscription fee that allowed up to X monthly trips.
  - lobster_johnson 9y ago
    No idea, but googling "valet storage" should get you some hits. Some time ago, in a different country, I used a storage service where they unloaded the box -- a big unit about 2m tall and deep, with enough space for a couch, several chairs, etc. -- on the street and then picked it up again when you wanted, all scheduled via their web app. Very nice system.
pdfernhout 9y ago
Yeah, I've wanted to make something similar It would be cool if the front-end might looked like a Star Trek TNG replicator. I wrote about a related idea here, expanding on the idea to include an actual internet of things in boxes: http://pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#Princeton_University_Freecycle_Transportation_Network_--_an_internet_of_physical_packages http://pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#Princeton... I'd also like something for storing and retrieving lots of different types of LEGO. Related prior work: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kay/pln/ http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kay/pln/

slfnflctd 9y ago

From an engineering standpoint, what you describe is likely actually possible to implement right now. It would be expensive as heck, but it should be doable. Meanwhile, no amount of money can currently buy you a robot that will completely do your laundry, because the problem has not yet been solved. The development of this stuff is not exactly intuitive.

R_haterade 9y ago
It's been implemented to some degree by Cliff Stoll for his klein bottle business. Or rather, he started a warehouse in his crawlspace. Same difference... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
solatic 9y ago
Well, if the dumbwaiter idea is feasible, you'd just put the dirty laundry in the dumbwaiter, tell the dumbwaiter that it's dirty laundry (maybe provide further classification like "this is a white towel" or "this is a pair of blue jeans"), and wait for notifications from the dumbwaiter system to know when you can ask the dumbwaiter for your laundry back. Wondering if you could even build some kind of camera and some kind of clear washer and dryer that could track individual pieces of laundry such that the laundry of multiple tenants could be washed together to reduce wait times. Considering the trend for new construction is to have luxury housing, while problematic in general for much-needed affordable housing, maybe it represents an opportunity to develop a system like this, whereby a developer installs the dumbwaiter in the walls, sets up a dumbwaiter floor, and is the primary investor in a startup that builds out the dumbwaiter tech. As the developer builds out more buildings, and the dumbwaiter can do more things, buyers will pay more for units with the dumbwaiter, and the developer can possibly even license out the dumbwaiter tech to other developers.
- slfnflctd 9y ago
  My expectation would be that getting the laundry into and/or out of the average commodity washer & dryer might be harder than you think. Robotic dexterity is very limited, and clothing can move and morph in all kinds of unexpected ways. I'm sure a custom industrial-scale solution could be designed, but that still leaves the problem of folding. I suppose a compromise might be partial folding, like having the machine gently 'stack' the clothes in a return basket to minimize wrinkles.
- krzat 9y ago
  Well if you have a dumbwaiter, then you can just use some external service to do the washing. Disregarding security and privacy, big apartment complexes with these dumbwaiter could actually work, with shared storage space and and laundry systems.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lobster_johnson 9y ago

Not an appliance, but there are a bunch of "valet storage" services like this. In NYC there's MakeSpace, which takes photos of your stuff that you can use to request delivery, should you need a particular item. They photograph and deliver the whole box, though, as far as I remember, not individual items.

shostack 9y ago
Any suggestions for ones that cover the Peninsula? I'd love something smaller than PODs where I could have a lockable box delivered, load it or unload it, and have it taken back, all at the push of the button. When autonomous cars fully arrive, I'll bet something like this takes off, particularly in areas with small homes like the Bay Area. You could charge a subscription fee that allowed up to X monthly trips.
- lobster_johnson 9y ago
  No idea, but googling "valet storage" should get you some hits. Some time ago, in a different country, I used a storage service where they unloaded the box -- a big unit about 2m tall and deep, with enough space for a couch, several chairs, etc. -- on the street and then picked it up again when you wanted, all scheduled via their web app. Very nice system.

pdfernhout 9y ago

Yeah, I've wanted to make something similar It would be cool if the front-end might looked like a Star Trek TNG replicator. I wrote about a related idea here, expanding on the idea to include an actual internet of things in boxes: http://pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#Princeton_University_Freecycle_Transportation_Network_--_an_internet_of_physical_packages http://pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html#Princeton... I'd also like something for storing and retrieving lots of different types of LEGO. Related prior work: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kay/pln/ http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kay/pln/