 |
| © 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.
 |
| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. |
These Electrolux appliance features make me jealous of Europe
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.
