Samsung's latest smart home tech puts a steamer in your closet to effortlessly straighten your clothes.
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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. Chris Monroe/CNET |
By Rich Brown, CNET
You already have a closet, but now Samsung wants you to have another.
This week, it announced the AirDresser, a freestanding
closet-within-a-closet that cleans and straightens your clothes after
you hang them up and walk away. Similar to the LG Styler and the lower-end, now discontinued Whirlpool Swash home
dry cleaning appliances, the idea is you hang your shirts, dress pants,
sweaters, and delicates inside these devices, which then use a heating
or steaming process to clean them.
The announcement was part of Samsung's showing at the IFA 2019
press conference, and it should appeal to well-heeled business types
who have a need to wear finicky clothing that's a chore to regularly
steam, iron or dry clean. The fact that AirDresser lives alongside your
clothes, and not in the laundry room or at the cleaners, is wildly
convenient, a fact that Samsung has been quick to note. Samsung says you
don't need a lot of space to install one.
Samsung hasn't
announced a price for the AirDresser, but we have a general idea of how
much these things might cost. The heat-based Whirlpool Swash was the
first to market in 2014 for $500. It was followed a year later by the
higher-end LG Styler, which debuted at $1,999. The AirDresser appears closest to the Styler in terms of its design and target consumer.
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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. |
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Imagine
the exec that spends a lot of time on the road, but perhaps isn't high
enough on the corporate food chain to have been awarded an assistant to
handle menial life tasks such as doing the laundry or stopping by the
dry cleaner. Business hotels that cater to that clientele are also a
target market.
Samsung has packed a lot of capital letter features
into the AirDresser. A JetAir system and Air Hangers buffet your
clothes with fast moving air. The Jet Steam system sanitizes and various
dryers and filters round out the experience. It sounds very similar to
LG's competing product.
How well AirDresser works is still unknown, but I know a dress shirt that's dying to try it out.
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