Laundry machines are the second-biggest users of energy in the home, and they're also the most complicated and least understood.
Marathon Laundry Machines is aiming to make them smart and energy-efficient.
This single machine both washes and dries laundry, and is internet-connected so it can negotiate rates with utilities and schedule laundry for energy-optimal times of day.
Doing laundry in a private home can be challenging enough.
But in a multi-tenant building with shared laundry resources, the contention for resources increases exponentially, and the status, scheduling, reservation, and management problem quickly becomes ripe for a cloud-based, data-driven solution.
Marathon has built an architecture starting with data-collecting sensors combined with state-of-the-art mobile and cloud solutions for tracking and managing not just the laundry, but the availability of machines, history of use, energy consumption, and true data-driven management.
The company has sold about $200,000 of the machines during its pre-sales process.
Wired Magazine said, “Marathon Laundry’s Washer-Dryer Is the Tesla of Appliances.”
And at CES 2016, Marathon Laundry Machine won Digital Trends Top Tech Award in Home Appliances.
The company's founder has worked for Steve Jobs three times, and has started and sold tech companies before.