Washing Machine Cleans With Voice Recognition

By Jeanie Croasmun

Racing out the door with your hands full of kids, lunches, laptops and briefcases when you realize that you forgot to start the laundry? Just tell Hermine, the voice-activated washer, to do it for you.

Getting its verbal knowledge from German company Speech Experts, Hermine is the first washing machine to agitate, spin and rinse through verbal commands. According to an article on Ananova.com, the machine can even handle complex instructions like "Pre-wash, then a hot wash at 95 degrees, spin at 1400 rotations, and start in half an hour." The washer itself is based on a Siemens’ model.

For the novice with dirty clothes, Hermine comes with an added bonus – she talks back. Hermine, with her friendly female voice, tells users how to tackle tough stain problems, how to sort clothes, even how to load a washer.

Currently, Hermine is not in mass production, and is being debuted at Hanover’s Cebit fair in Germany on March 12. Speech Experts, the manufacturer, plans to gauge public interest in Hermine before proceeding.

Source: Ananova