Innovative Technology enables Tourists to check Hotel Laundry Cleaning History

A laundry service provider in Wuhan, central China, has introduced a technology that reveals when the bed linen was last washed, as reported by the European Cleaning Journal.

According to a Chinese state-run media outlet Xinhua, the Wuhan Kunteng Laundry – which provide cleaning services for many of the city’s hotels and hostels – will insert microchips into the corner of bed sheets, towels and quilts containing data about the item’s washing history. Each chip contains a QR code that can be scanned by a cell phone to reveal the date of their last clean. The microchips act like electronic ID cards linking reservations to washing information. Stated to be about the size of a small coin, the chips are claimed to be water-resistant and can withstand high temperatures which means that linens containing the embedded microchips require no special care.

The technology is reported to come from Germany and Japan and will soon enable QR codes to be printed on each towel and sheet. Hotel guests will then be able to scan the code to discover the history of each towel and sheet including when it was last washed, how many times it has been used and at what temperature it was disinfected.