The Internet has embedded itself in yet another sector of modern society: the laundry room.
A new Web site, Mac-Grey's LaundryView.com, provides college students with information about the availability of washers and dryers in 30 on-campus locations. Students may reference the site from their rooms, eliminating extra trips downstairs to see whether machines are occupied.
According to LaundryView.com, the program was "developed in response to requests for greater control over laundry activities. Since many people tend to do their laundry during similar time periods, it results in busy laundry rooms."
The Web site is part of the vending package that replaced the previous Debitek system, which required a second set of vending points for ID-card laundry payments.
Through the new system, implemented over winter break, students may use Points Plus to pay for laundry.
The Web site, which refreshes itself every few seconds, identifies each of the washing machines in a building as either in-use, available or out-of-service. They are marked red, green or grey, respectively. Additionally, if a machine in use, the site shows how much time remains in its current cycle.
Students may also request an e-mail alert from the Web site notifying them when their laundry cycle finishes.
Director of Dining Services Patti Lee Klos said that Mac-Gray offers the LaundryView.com Web site in the package that includes the technology with which Tufts' vending system was recently consolidated. Tufts chose to run another data line into the laundry machines to allow students to use the Web site.
According to Klos, her co-workers, Sonya Johnson and Yanick St. Pierre, completed most of the legwork for the project. Johnson and St. Pierre worked with Mac-Gray to ensure each location on-campus was properly wired.
The total cost of the upgrade to the laundry system approached six figures, said Klos, but Mac-Grey bore half the financial burden. Tufts paid the wiring fees, totaling over $25,000.
She gave credit to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Services Committee for the implementation of this new technology. They were "interested in simplifying the way Points [Plus] are used on campus," Klos said.
"We've known for a while that the technology was aging, and we were looking for a new solution," Klos said.
According to senior and Senate historian Ed Kalafarski, the University's implementation of LaundryView.com could have important consequences.
"Everyone who's heard of it thinks it's tremendous," Kalafarski said. "I don't think enough people know about it to take advantage of it."
Student reactions have been lukewarm so far. Sophomore Sam Spiegal is concerned about its applicability. "I haven't used LaundryView yet, but I don't think there will be much improvement - maybe it's nice for people who are injured or sick," he said. "It's just a way to be lazier."
Others are more optimistic. "It's a start. It'll save people some time, especially those who have to walk up and down a lot of stairs," freshman Nelson Leese said.
The Mac-Gray Corporation has long been an innovator in laundry trends. Its founder, H.S. Gray, "led the coin laundry era by installing a coin box on an ordinary washing machine," according to the LaundryView.com Web site.
