Delivery Man vs. Machine: A Fight for the Future of Laundry

I detest doing wash . I hate stuffing the musky - smelling duds into a machine . I hate rain cats and dogs in the goop . I hate folding it , when it ’s done . I hate the whole saltation . So when I heard about two major innovations in the laundry - doing sphere , I convey emotional — perhaps a small too excited .

One of the excogitation is a new product , and the other is a service . The former , of late announced by Whirlpool , is called the Swash ; it ’s a storage locker - sized appliance that ’s straight out of The Jetsons . Basically , you put your wearing apparel inside the machine , insert a canister of good - smelling stuff and nonsense , and press a button to refreshen up your clothes in ten minutes .

The other creation is a new , on - demand laundry Robert William Service calledFlyCleaners . Currently useable only in New York City , this smartphone app - powered business will pick up your foul laundry and/or teetotal cleansing , place it to the laundromat , and drop everything back off when you ’re done . It ’s not much more expensive than what you ’d pay for wash - and - fold Robert William Service , but you do n’t have to give the solace of your flat .

Both Swash and FlyCleaners sound too good to be true . Unfortunately , both of them are , in their own especial ways .

The Experiment

In an attempt to curb my enthusiasm for these two wonderful - sound things , I did what any half nice technical school blogger would do : conducted an experimentation with a crumple suit and shirt from my closet . First , I ran everything through the Swash . Then , I stuffed it back in a udder for a good re - crumple , and sent it off to FlyCleaners for the introductory treatment .

My thesis — and I did n’t really have to cogitate twice about it — was that FlyCleaners would grow a sharper suit and shirt . That does n’t mean that I expected the Swash to betray . I just mat like the Swash ’s hope that I could “ say goodbye to excessive washing , dry out , steaming , ironing , and dry - cleansing and say hello to live life unhampered ” seemed to over - hope .

That said , I kept my anticipation low . The Swash is not design to replace washing and dry cleaning whole , so I prevent the nidus on clothing care . I specifically wanted to know if the appliance worked well enough to replace ironing , which is the one thing I hate more than washing . So when it came down to it , I judged the last outcome based on face ( read : wrinkle ) .

First Contender: The Whirlpool Swash

Like I said before , the Swash is like an convenience you ’d find in the Jetsons ’ home base . The equipment costs $ 500 , plus however much you end up spending on the refresh agent that comes in small pack called Swash Pods , which cost $ 7 for a twelve . It ’s the machine - powered , fuss - free future we were promise , though it ’s not mean to be a ended replacement for dry cleaning . Rather , it ’s a clothes freshener and crinkle addition .

Still , when I travel up to Midtown for a demonstration , wrinkled suit of clothes in tow , I expect living - changing results . A little fresher and a wrinkle - free is about as much as I ’d ever hope for . The Jetsons , however , is a toon , and it ’s silly to require things in the real domain to work as well as they do in the mental imagery of animators .

The Swash is well-to-do to employ . A drawer - like rack equipped with one or two hanger slides out of the locker . All you have to do is advert your clause of clothing on the hanger , load it with some ( variety of awkward ) clips that stretch out out of the frame , and then end the draftsman again . Then , you infix a so - called Swash Pod — it ’s fundamentally a Febreeze - like liquidness in a sealed cup — pick a 10- or 15 - minute Hz , and pressure get-go .

The whole workflow would distinctly fit into any first light modus operandi rather nicely . conceive of wake up and stick your sport coat and bloomers into the Swash before hop in the cascade . When you get out , the Swash cycle will be complete , and your lawsuit will be warm , fresh , and weigh . At least , that ’s the sales pitch Swash ’s PR squad collapse me . I ’m middling convinced that 90 percentage of the outgrowth would knead exactly as they key . That last 10 per centum is the really important part , though .

When I opened the drawer after the first cycle after 10 minutes , my shoulder shrugged a scrap . I ’d loaded the Swash with a wrinkled and avowedly finicky shirt , but I honestly could n’t state the difference between the pre - Swash shirt and the post - Swash shirt . Sure , it was warmer and sense nicer than before . But it remained too wrinkled to get into .

The suit do better . While putting in two article of clothing at a clip is n’t recommended , the fact that each Swash wheel accept either 10 or 15 second means that you ’ll in all probability have to cut some nook on busy mornings . The blazer and dress pant that I load into the political machine for the 2d cycle came out looking pretty great . Some wrinkles remain in the articulatio cubiti and articulatio genus area , but I emphatically matte like the Swash did good work . I also opine it facilitate that I ran the 15 - minute - long cps this metre . at last , the appliance handled the lightweight wool wooing fabric best than the wintertime - weight cotton shirt cloth .

My preliminary conclusion so far lined up with my hypothesis : Swash is a orderly idea , but it ’s certainly not a silvery bullet when it comes to clothing care .

Second Contender: FlyCleaners

This affair sounds like a trick . No in earnest , when my roommate first told me about a startup that would fall to your doorway , clean up both your even laundry and your ironical cleaning , and give it bracing in less than 24 hours , I thought it must be a scam . You ’d expect that kind of military service in a five - star hotel , not Brooklyn .

But it all sour as advertised — for the most part . Last Saturday , Idownloaded the FlyCleaners app , knock through a few light set up screens , and ten minutes subsequently , a friendly companion with a laundry bag appeared at my door . I handed over a tote bag with the shirt and suit stuff inside — I exit them like that for a calendar week so they ’d get sound and wrinkled — and he said they ’d be quick by Monday . All I had to do to schedule a delivery was go into the app and intercept a button .

Two days afterwards , I was quick for my rescue . I opened the app and search for the button . But it did n’t look like my ordering was finished . In fact , it did n’t even look like the cleanup unconscious process had started , as the handy progress bar was all empty . That did n’t seem right , but I shrugged it off . In retrospect , I should ’ve call Fly Cleaners , because something was clearly wrong . I did n’t pay a premium Leontyne Price to go chasing down my dry cleaning , though . Fly Cleaners was hypothecate to plunk them up and magically cede them without any movement on my part . That was the whole point .

The next 24-hour interval I go back to the app . Same thing . I really needed the clothes back at this point , so I fired off a strongly word email to the support team , my only contact choice dedicate . They responded within a couplet of hours , which would ’ve been an eternity if I was , say , late for a hymeneals . The livelihood line informed me that my order was indeed ready for pickup , despite what the progress bar say , and instructed me to sign out of the app and then back in to schedule their regaining .

This was jolly galling . You ’d think that an app - free-base service would check that its app was free of hemipterous insect before letting customer use it . The next available appointment that was uncommitted to schedule was , annoyingly , 7 AM the next morning .

At 7:01 AM , I got a call from FlyCleaners . They were at my room access with my washing . App bugs aside , the extent to which this felt like concierge - gauge was kind of neat . The dry cleanup came in a astonishingly sturdy gloomy nylon garment bag bearing the FlyCleaners logotype , and at bottom , everything looked hunky-dory . The shirt , I must hold , was still a midget bit wrinkly — I told you the fabric was finicky!—but the suit looked great . All things told , the bill came to $ 17.50 . I did end up paying a little more for convenience that was n’t all that convenient , but maybe it was just bad hazard .

And the Winner Is…

So let ’s talk pros and yardbird . The Swash is a hulking machine that does a decent job freshening up your dress but does n’t really replace laundering them . However , if you ’re someone who on a regular basis send clothes to the cleaners just to get them freshened up , it ’ll plausibly make unnecessary you money in the foresighted run .

The Swash sounds like a cracking idea , but the political machine itself has its limitation . In my experiment , the Swash cover light weightiness fleece framework pretty well but clamber with serious wrinkles . Since there ’s no water involved , it would in all likelihood excel at freshening up delicates like silk and wool . However , do n’t expect this rather large contraption to put back your branding iron any prison term soon . It ’s more like a jumbo steamer .

FlyCleaners , meanwhile , is a full - on cleanup avail that promises commodious , on - demand picks ups and delivery . While the society did a good job clean my dress , they really dropped the ball on the gismo piece . It was n’t just the app glitch that go bad to tell me when my washing was ready , either . It really would ’ve been with child to talk to a human vox when I had a problem .

All that pronounce , FlyCleaners wins our future of laundry competition , because it actually gets your wearing apparel clean and decently press — even if you do have to wait a bit longer , and may have a hard time getting them back .

This small Swash vs. FlyCleaners experimentation did help oneself me take account how far we ’ve come towards resolve my laundry hatred , but neither solved it . sure enough , I ca n’t yet pull a lawsuit out of a tote bag bag , shake off it in a machine , and be promenade - quick in 10 moment . I can , though , be lazy , pay a agiotage price , and feel like a big guesswork thanks to a smartphone app .

That said , I ’ll probably just keep drag my bag down the street to the laundromat . Although it requires more effort , it actually amounts to less dogfight . Plus , I really wish their cartridge holder option .