Digital laundry is here, Mac-Gray says

Globe Staff

It could be a lazy college kid's salvation: A laundry room that sends text messages to let you know that the rinse cycle is over and it's time to collect the wash.

That's one feature of Change Point, a new payment and monitoring system from Mac-Gray Corp., a Waltham company that manages nearly 90,000 laundry rooms nationwide. Some of those laundry rooms are located in off-campus student housing, others in apartment and condominium buildings, Mac-Gray said.

According to a Mac-Gray press release, Change Point connects washers and dryers to the Internet, giving laundry room users the options of paying for each wash or dry cycle with a debit or credit card. No more rummaging about for quarters. No keeping track of special laundry cards that store payment. Users can also get a text message after the laundry is done.

Better yet perhaps, Change Point gives laundry room users the ability to go online and check out the availability of washers and dryers. In theory, such a feature would reduce the chances of arriving in the laundry room with bags full of dirty clothes only to find all of the washing machines in use.

Not only does Change Point provide customer convenience, it also allows Mac-Gray to monitor every aspect of laundry equipment operation, the company said.

"The Change Point system is a significant advancement over the coin-only and laundry-card payment systems that currently operate in multi-housing laundry rooms across the United States," Mac-Gray said.