Written on September 17, 2008 – 4:53 am | by Maria Mihale |


A funny thing happened today when I was surfing the Web, anxious to find some interesting stuff to write about. A friend of mine asked me whether I find it normal for someone to achieve a laptop instead of a washing machine. She was complaining about her boyfriend’s desire of having a laptop when he already has a desktop and he didn’t seem to be bothered by the lack of a device to help them wash their clothes.

She didn’t finish her story when I came upon this amazing concept which I knew nothing about. My, my, what a coincidence! The device was no more, no less than a washing machine.

Designed by Guopeng Liang at China’s Tongji University, one of the finalists in Electrolux’s Design Lab ’08 contest, which I already mentioned on a previous occasion (when I talked about the Drawer Kitchen), the iBasket is a space saving clothes hamper and washing machine in one.



The novelty about the iBasket is that it will automatically begin the wash cycle once the weight of the clothing reaches a critical predetermined point. With a transparent cylindrical body made of acrylic glass, engineered plastic and recycled aluminum, the device washes the dirty lot for a selected duration, while the built-in refresh system gets of the smelly odors. When the washing is over, the LEDs fixed at the bottom flashes out to let you know the process is over. As if it wasn’t enough already, the iBasket features a WiFi link that allows you to control the machine from your computer so that, when it has its job done, it sends a twitter message to your cellphone or PC. “Mission accomplished”, maybe?

Once again, the device is in its concept phase, but I’m sure there are many people among you, guys, who put their hopes in the iBasket.

(Source Dvice)