Isaac by Weave Robotics Now Folding Real Laundry in San Francisco

• Weave Robotics has deployed its robots with Tumble Laundry in San Francisco for real-world, paid laundry folding.
• The Isaac prototype now folds shirts 70% autonomously and learns from live deployments to improve its general-purpose capabilities.

Weave Robotics has launched real-world testing of its Isaac robot through a partnership with Tumble Laundry in San Francisco. The company says that "this is the first time general-purpose robots have ever folded actual laundry that you can pay for today." The deployment sees Tumble benefiting from autonomous laundry services while Weave Robotics gains real-world validation and feedback ahead of launching its robot to customers.

Isaac is Weave Robotics' personal robot that is built for the home. The robot is currently capable of end-to-end t-shirt folding and workspace clearing. It can currently operate 70% autonomously with human intervention only as needed, according to the company. The robot's design allows it to fold clothes on various surfaces and continuously move clothes. Its features are tailored to real home environments, especially for families with large laundry loads and Weave Robotics intends for it to do more than laundry to extend to tidying up messes and be a second caretaker for your home.

Weave has built a data pipeline that trains its vision-language-action model using both real-world and in-house data. As more Isaacs are deployed, the dataset grows in diversity and helps the robots become more robust and adaptable in dynamic home settings. The company is currently letting customers sign up for updates on when Isaac will be ready. Its website states that Isaac will be shipped out to the first customers in 2025, with future batches in 2026.

🌀 Tom’s Take:

Real-world deployment is the only way to ground autonomy in reality and enrich vision-language-action models with data that simulations can’t provide.

Source: Weave Robotics / LinkedIn