Internet of Things comes to laundry via Omo

Smartphones, smartwatches, smartbands, smart TVs… so much of what we use in our life is smart, so it should come as no surprise that your laundry is about to get smart, too.

You might not think your clothes line or Hills Hoist needs access to a net, but the makers of washing liquid think differently, and have come up with a gadget to make this happen.

This week, Omo has introduced what it claims is the “world’s smartest clothes peg” with a little gadget called the “Peggy”, which is a larger-than-normal clothes peg with an array of sensors and a bit of connectivity to talk to a phone or tablet and tell you things about the best circumstances to dry your clothes.

For instance, you might take the laundry out when it’s clear outside, but the clouds might loom later on, making you wonder if perhaps you should have put the clothes on the line at that time or later on. These sorts of decisions can make us redo the laundry over and over again, turning laundry into a bit of a time loop for many of us and forcing us into an endless loop of chores.

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Omo hopes to break free of that cycle with a bit of technology, building a clothes peg that incorporates weather tracking and fluctuations in atmospheric conditions to tell you if it’s time to put your clothes on the line to dry, or to do it later.

“Omo is committed to finding ways to help lighten the load and get children playing, exploring and developing their full potential,” said Paul Connell, Marketing Director at Unilever Laundry and Homeware in Australia, the makers of Omo.

“Peggy is a simple device that reinvents how parents go about their laundry, freeing up time to enjoy more moments of real play with their children.”

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The word “simple” may not be an apt way to define what Peggy is, however, because with a thermometer, humidity sensor for precipitation and humidity, and sunlight tracking from a UV sensor, this peg is anything but simple, not like the wooden or plastic ones you’re probably already using for drying your laundry.

Peggy takes these sensors and throws the information together, sending it over a WiFi network to a phone or tablet to provide when the right time would be to hang clothes up to dry, while also suggesting how long it would take to dry the clothes.

Going a bit beyond this, Omo also suggests when it might be time to go outside and do things you might actually want to do with the kids, such as playing sports or being outside, while sending notifications to your device that the washing is being taken care of because it’s drying with no risk of rain.

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One thing worth noting is that Omo’s Peggy is still a test product. with the gadget very much in a prototype stage at this point, though the company is looking at releasing Peggy some time in the near future.

There’s no pricing just yet, or an on-sale date, but Omo’s people have said that anyone can register interest at the Omo page for the gadget.

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We’ll let you know, though, when we hear of anything else and when a review peg suddenly pops up on our clotheslines.