effie - the automated ironing system

by Startacus Admin

Innovation in household chores thanks to effie - the domestic appliance that dries and irons your clothes for you!

Ironing clothes isn’t exactly a difficult task, but it is one that consumes time that could be used for other things. There is something to be said for not spending all of our lives rushing and stressing over what we could be doing instead of the thing that we’re doing, but the sun is going to swallow the Earth sooner or later, so…why waste time ironing? Why not let the future do the ironing for you? By which we mean automated machines, of course. Because - hail Skynet - they are our future.

A Cambridge-based group of engineers has created effie, an automated system for both drying and ironing your clothes straight from the washing machine. No need to split the load into clothing type or colours.

All you or your robot butler need to do is hang your clothes on the specially-designed clothes hangers, hang up to 12 of them on the rail, and push start. effie can iron by contact for less delicate items of clothing and steam the creases out of the delicate ones. And then by moving hot air over the clothes, effie dries them far more gently than a tumble dryer.

The removable water tray means that effie is not static and plumbed in, but can be moved about on wheels. And if you want to smell like parma violet - and who wouldn’t - you can add a fragrance pod to that water. A small tool connected to the machine allows you to perform any touch-ups needed without breaking out the iron.

Like any modern piece of technology, effie comes with a companion app that will tell you its progress, alert you when it has finished its cycle, and allow you to order new hangers and fragrance pods.

In October, the group announced that they had very fruitful talks with some major appliance brands about partnerships. While this means the machine won’t be available as soon as they had hoped, it does mean that it will be available more widely when it does start shipping. We look forward to the day that our robo-Alfred goes to collect our new effie.

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• #innovation
• #chore
• #invention
• #robot
• #cambridge
• #
• #effie

Published on: 2nd December 2019