Hover Hoover’s new gadget over your laundry, and it will tell you how to clean it

By Jenny McGrath September 3, 2016

Left to our own devices, it’s pretty easy for us rubes to ruin our clothes. Even if your washing machine won’t let you use hot water for your delicates, that doesn’t stop you from tossing something frilly in with your sturdy cottons. Hoover’s washing machine with TED, introduced at IFA 2016, is a smart appliance that knows what type of clothes it’s washing and recommends an appropriate cycle.

It doesn’t exactly do this all by itself. TED stands for textile expert detector, and it’s actually a separate little device from the washer itself. You can magnetically attach it to the machine. It’s about as long and wide as an iPhone 6, but curves out into a fairly bulky handheld gadget. Both the washer and TED are in prototype form right now, but Hoover says it should be due out next year on the European market.

Related Videos

Here’s how it works. You take the TED and lay it on your shirt, sweater, on pants. It detects the fabric – linen, cotton, and so on – and then the accompanying app tells you what cycle to wash your clothes in. If it detects you scanned linen, cotton and polyester, for example, it suggests you wash it as a mixed load. It offers other tips, too, like a recommendation that you not exceed half the machine’s capacity.

The app is also supposed to pull data from you calendar and other apps. If you brought your toddler to a restaurant, it will ask if you want an extra stain boost for this particular wash. That might be a little more information than you want to give up to your washer, though.

The idea of TED sounds good to us, but it also sounds like a lot of work. If you could easily scan your tees as you tossed them in – almost like a barcode – that might be a little more useful. What we’re really waiting for is for the machine itself to sense all the articles of clothing that we threw inside in a clump. That way we’ll get an alert before we accidentally shrink our favorite sweater.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

News

How often should you clean your gadgets? Probably more than you do

Polling shows most people aren't washing their phones enough

porsche design huawei mate rs phone call close

Amid the chaos of the COVID-19 outbreak, “Wash your hands!” has become the battle cry of 2020. For many people, their hands are the primary way they interact with objects around them, in the process coming into contact with all the viruses and bacteria that might be lurking invisibly. Washing your hands properly (20 seconds with soap and hot water) and frequently, while avoiding any touching of their faces, is one of the best ways a person can reduce their chances of catching the virus.

Frequent hand-washing won’t do you much good if you immediately start touching contaminated objects, however, and unless you were a stringent cleaner before the outbreak, chances are a lot of the gadgets you use in everyday life haven’t gotten a good decontamination in a while, if at all. Here’s why you need to wash your gadgets, and how often.
How does coronavirus spread, and how long can it survive on surfaces?
Although experts are still not entirely certain how the virus spreads, the evidence indicates that it spreads “mainly from person-to-person … Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

News

You can now ask Alexa for your bank balance, and she just might tell you

fake ios amazon alexa setup app echo dot 3rd gen

Online banking has made life easier, but assuming you use proper cybersecurity practices, typing in your email and password every time can be a bit of a pain. The Amazon Echo, however, now makes it easy to check your balance. All you have to do is link your bank -- a quick and private process -- and then ask Alexa to tell you your balance. The only concern at that point is who might be in earshot.

The process, by the way, doesn't require sharing personal banking information with Amazon. The downside is that the list of compatible banks is rather limited. While our research did not yield a master list, these are the financial institutions that we know have Alexa skills:

Smart Home

Fast and efficient: LG’s new washer rocks the laundry in half an hour

lg wm3900 smart home washer turbowash

Whether you have a gigantic family that goes through underwear like the Spartans went through spears, or a type-A spouse whose couture is an element of her success and enables your ability to stay home and write this stuff, laundry is a giant pain.

If you have the means, though, LG is about to drop one hell of a washing machine on the market. During National Laundry Day (who knew that was a thing?) this month, the company launched its new line of smart home-friendly, Wi-Fi-enabled washing machines that promise to totally scrub a full load of laundry in half an hour or less.