BlankEngadget - Thursday, July 20, 2017 at 8:05 PM

GE's $99 'Talking Laundry' box was built for the blind

Scott Olson via Getty Images

Doing laundry might be dead simple for most people, but the visually impaired 
don't have it so easy. To make that easier, GE Appliance's
skunkworks division FirstBuild
 -- along with the help of a 14 year-old -- 
has designed
 a system called Talking Laundry. With a name like that, the invention is pretty 
self-explanatory: it's a metal box (below) that audibly tells you how
much time is left in a given wash cycle, and simplifies controls to one knob 
each for a washer and dryer.

Using a board computer and FirstBuild's Green Bean tools that convert code to 
machine language, teenage Jack DuPlessis (his dad works for GE and gave him
the task) put a prototype together in the span of a weekend. Talking Laundry can 
even be retrofitted onto existing laundry machines;
its sales page
 states that the module will connect to "most" current and all future laundry 
units.

Maybe best of all, these are available to buy right now and they won't break the 
bank. One unit will control both a washer and a dryer and will only set
you back $99 -- a far cry from that $16,000
voice-controlled laundry folder.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/20/ges-99-talking-laundry-box-was-built-for-the-blind/