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Comment by cududa | Hacker News Reader

This is a bit silly. First the fact that one of their “breakthroughs” was discovering it’s easier to rack the same dish types before washing them shows not a single on of them have ever worked a dish line.

Second, custom dishware with proprietary magnets baked in is ... unlikely to catch on

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I think custom dishware is key, and will certainly catch on. One of the major problems with household robots is working in an environment designed for humans. Small changes like putting RFID style tags or magnetic strips in dishes mean a robot that clears away your dirty dishes becomes a possibility, without relying on expensive and error prone computer vision or human-equivalent hands.

> RFID style tags or magnetic strips in dishes

Probably not though because the hard bit of robots picking stuff up isn't really identifying the objects. Magnets might help, but you can't put them in metal or transparent items anyway.

> custom dishware with proprietary magnets baked in is ... unlikely to catch on

It says this in the article: It turns out that many places don’t actually care what dishware they use, so if Dishcraft can provide them with new dishware that’s much easier to clean, then great.

It goes even further:

Many kitchens, it turns out, don’t need their own Dishcraft robot. What they do need is clean dishes, so Dishcraft offers “dishes as a service,” exchanging clean dishes for dirty ones and then washing them in a centralized location.

That’s a whole lot of not gonna happen.

Why in the world would you drive dishes around town, and keep a double set on hand, or possibly a triple set on backup for when the service goes down

It happens with linens for hotels, why wouldn't it work for dishes?

Weight, breakage, flexibility and space constraints for dishes are much different

Also, someone needs to scrape, check, pack and unpack the boxes. I can't see this saving money, especially at places with high turnover.

But if there aren't enough dishwashers, then the ones that they do have quit because they're overworked, then the rest of the kitchen staff has to pitch in and THEY are overworked too, and then the customers get slow service, it's like dominos. I can see just falling back to dish delivery

This is actually very common in China. The cutlery comes all wrapped in plastic on every table, it's washed in a centralized location

Interesting. I'm always surprised by just how little I know about China.

...and then my relatives open them up and insist on rinsing each piece with boiling water anyway (conveniently always provided as part of the tea service).

Also, in recent years, many restaurants have started to charge for the wrapped plastic cutlery + dishes, usually 1 RMB for cutlery and 2-5 RMB for the dish set (you don't get to keep them - it's basically just the fee for the cleaning + packaging). Perhaps they're trying to encourage people to bring their own, which is a bit of a weird (but probably environmentally friendly) idea.

Sounds like an environmental nightmare. It may be a drip in an ocean, but it's so completely unnecessary. Or am I missing something, apart from the human psyche ("it feels more fresh that way!")?

No your probably right, probably is pretty wasteful

Yeah I’m 1000% not buying that places don’t care about dishware.

The ones that truly don’t care buy it in bulk for cheap as hell. The ones that do care, selectively chose their dishware. Saying “well actually everyone will be happy to use our dishes” is a bit funny.

Yeah, it’s hilariously wrong. Some serious gymnastics to make that limitation seem like a nonissue.

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