#HTE

Design for a Self-Making Bed

If you’ve ever been in the home of a friend who’s a veteran, you’ve probably noticed that their beds are always fastidiously made. Habits learned in the military are tough to shake, and with good reason. (More on this later.)

Some of us civilians, though, cannot be bothered to make our beds, despite the desirability of maintaining a neat appearance in our homes. Thus a Spanish company called Ohea (Basque for “bed”) designed this Smart Bed self-making model:

As you can guess, Ohea’s system only worked with that particular blanket set-up. It had settings for both manual–i.e. push the button, the bed gets made–and automatic, where a sensor detects when you’ve gotten out of bed and triggers the sequence three seconds later. (This latter setting was presumably a poor choice for those who have to pee in the middle of the night.) Here’s a closer look at the mechanisms:

You’ll notice that we’ve been using the past tense. That’s because, although this design is currently making the rounds on social media, no one has bothered to check if the company still exists. It doesn’t. The bed was publicized in 2012, and as of 2016 Ohea’s website no longer exists.

Make your beds, you lazy gits. Or don’t. But for chrissakes, don’t look for a machine to do it for you!