Apart from your computer or smartphone can you list the top three most useful electronics in your home?
Here's my top 3:
1. Washing machine
2. Heaters with timers
3. ???
Well, I don't have a #3.
I also could have listed the clothes drier, but there's always the washing line.
And the dishwasher is great but I could always train my kids to scrub plates.
The television is entertaining, but I wouldn't call it "useful" (unless you need to hypnotise your kids). OK, I admit that the TV hard disk recorders are quite useful.
But the washing machine is No. 1 usefulnessity* for my household as we are a messy family who like to bake a lot and roll around in mud and stuff, so it's a big time saver and makes an otherwise messy, wet and back-breaking job easy as pouring a scoop of powder and pressing the "go" button.
So, it's surprising to me - that since the dawn of the electric washing machine in 1904 - more truly useful things haven't invaded our homes.
Sure, we have flasher more usable vacuum cleaners. The Dyson one can now pivot on the spot. But let's face it, all they do well is suck.
One of those automated robotic vacuum cleaners would be a joke in my house - even a traditional vacuum cleaner being dragged around by a human has a hard enough time navigating the kids clothes, spilt food and furniture.
Remote controls are useful if you can find them - but I suspect their days are numbered - a truly smart-TV will know what I like, and when, and actually be able to understand me when I ask it "When's True Blood on again?"
And we have ovens which cook stuff better, smarter... yeah yeah, so what - it's all just incremental improvements to existing technologies.
I want something truly revolutionary, something truly useful that will save my family doing menial tasks, in the same way the washing machine revolutionised laundry (and many housewives at the same time).
So what's missing from the average family home?
Self-cleaning toilets? Maybe. Don't they have those in Japan already?
A home entertainment system without 50,000 cables? Coming soon I'm sure.
A thing that eats organic rubbish? We've already got one of those, it's called a worm farm.
A clue - it's still got something to do with laundry.
It's the thing every mother, house-trained dad and teenager needed yesterday...
A laundry-folding robot!
Yup. You see the washing machine is a prime example of a broken service model. It only does half the job.
Some of those fancier ones wash and dry clothes... but do they fold the washing and put it away? Noooo...
We have robots that can build cars, diffuse bombs, even do surgery...
So why don't we have the obviously useful laundry-folding robots right now? (even better, they'd do the ironing too).
I'm not the only one who's had this on their wishlist for eons.
According to the online research firm Persuadable Research Corporation, more than half the people surveyed said that a robot would be useful for, among other things, folding laundry.
Good news, the geeks are working on it.
Robotics engineers at University of California at Berkeley have developed a robot that can fold towels and socks.
It's slow and bulky, but like most technologies it will evolve.
So, unfortunately, looks like my family is stuck with folding washing until well after the kids have left home.
What's a quicker solution?
Spray-on clothing!
* Usefulnessity: [yoos-fuhl-nes-i-tee]
Something that's really really really useful. You don't know how your grandparents survived before it came along. When yours blows up over the weekend you grudgingly accept the afterhours call out fee because you can't face another day without it.