South Korean firm LG Electronics has opened a smart laundromat in the Philippines capital of Manila.

The Laundry Lounge is a digital, contactless public laundry facility designed to deliver a premium and convenient laundry experience for both owners and customers.

With only 30 per cent of households in the Philippines owning washing machines and even fewer owning dryers, commercial laundromats are very popular. And even for those 30 per cent, the machines tend to be small, meaning having to run multiple loads for large families. As a result, commercial laundromats are quite popular in the Philippines and considered a good business for investment, with as many as 1500 new laundromats opening every year.

But the pandemic has made visiting laundromats a stressful experience for many.

With Laundry Lounge, owners can monitor their business remotely while customers can check washer and dryer availability and keep an eye on the progress of their clothes from any location.

The Laundry Lounge app makes the entire laundromat experience healthier and easier. Available for Android devices, the app allows customers to make contactless payment, reserve a washer or dryer in advance, and monitor their laundry’s progress from home or the car so there’s no need to wait in a queue.

Laundry Lounge owners can run their business completely remotely. Revenues, machine breakdowns and any other issues are communicated via the app so there’s no need to be on site all the time.

LG’s commercial washing machine and dryer models employ features to deliver clean, gentle clothing care. Every washing machine incorporates hygiene technology that cleans the drum before, during and after every cycle and LG’s commercial dryer uses high temperature air to sanitise clothes from germs and bacteria. To increase hygiene, the Laundry Lounge includes LG Styler wardrobe management units which customers can use to steam clean clothes such as coats, suits and scarves that cannot be washed in water.

“The opening of LG’s first digital Laundry Lounge outside its test market demonstrates LG’s commitment to providing operators and customers with a smarter, safer way to turn laundry into big business,” said Don Kwack, senior vice president at LG Electronics. “LG Laundry Lounge introduces both smart and convenient features to the laundromat environment, trends which we think urban consumers will really appreciate.”