Laundry going online at colleges

College students sitting in their dorm rooms will
soon get an answer via the Internet to one of
life’s great unanswered questions: Is there a
washer or dryer available in the basement
laundry room?

By Mike Langberg
Mercury News

IBM and a smaller company named USA
Technologies today unfolds eSuds, a program that
will connect 9,000 washers and dryers in college
dorms around the country to the Net starting early
next year.

From a Web page, students will see which washers and dryers are in use and which are free. When their
clothes are clean or dry, the appliance will send an e-mail message — or even beep a pager.

This may sound silly, but there are serious business reasons for laundry-room operators to pay for online
connections.

Net-enabled washers and dryers will report breakdowns immediately, so operators can dispatch a repair
person and get broken units quickly back into revenue-producing service.

Eternally cash-strapped students could also wash their clothes more often, again producing more revenue for
equipment operators, because Internet-enabled machines can deduct the cost from an online account funded
by Mom and Dad — a much easier alternative than begging roommates for spare quarters.

Students pay by swiping their college ID card through a slot, or by entering an authorization code on their
cellular phones.

Another convenience feature: eSuds washers will be attached to tanks full of detergent and fabric softener,
which can be dispensed on demand for a small additional fee.

ESuds was tested earlier this year at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, drawing
an “overwhelmingly positive response” from students, according to Wendy Jenkins, head of marketing for
USA Technologies, based in the Philadelphia suburb of Wayne, Penn.

IBM’s Global Services group and USA Technologies jointly developed the technology for cashless laundry
machines and the software for monitoring the machines through the Web.

The partners are selling eSuds to service operators who run college laundry rooms under contract and will
begin at schools in the Midwest, quickly spreading nationwide.

It’s part of a bigger trend toward cashless vending machines, motivated in part by efforts to reduce
vandalism.

“People don’t break into vending machines just to steal a soda,” says Jenkins.

Internet-enabled appliances are also headed into the home. Whirlpool, which makes half the consumer
washers and dryers sold worldwide under the Whirlpool, Kenmore, Kitchen Aid and Roper names, will
introduce its first Net-connected ovens, microwaves and refrigerators later this year. Washers and dryers will
eventually go online, too, mostly so Whirlpool can remotely fix problems and watch for impending
breakdowns.

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