A pair of jeans, a few t-shirts or the light laundry accumulated during a trip ends up inside. Then you add water and detergent and you start push a pedal with your foot. No plug, electric motor or two-hour and forty-seven minute “eco” program: the drumi’s drum is turned by the legs.
The small manual washing machine developed by the Canadian Yirego is designed especially for campers, camping, small apartments and situations in which washing a few items with a traditional washing machine would make little sense. According to Yirego’s official specifications, it can hold up to 2 kilograms of laundryweighs 8.5 kg and occupies approximately 50 centimeters on its longest side.
How it works
The mechanism is quite basic, and this is probably the most interesting part. You load the laundry from the top, add water and a small amount of detergent and operate the pedal. Yirego points 3-5 minutes for washinganother 2-3 minutes for rinsing and about 30 seconds for spinning. The drum can reach 600 revolutions per minute.
The water is also loaded manually. The specifications speak of a maximum of 8 liters for washing and another 8 for rinsing: up to 16 liters for a complete cycle. It is therefore a limited quantity, however also linked to the equally limited capacity of the machine. The comparison with a normal 8 or 9 kg washing machine must be made keeping in mind that a fraction of the laundry enters here.
The water is drained without having to lift the appliance and, once rinsing is finished, you continue pedaling to eliminate part of the water from the fabrics. The result is one manual centrifugeespecially useful for delicate items, sportswear, linens or small quantities of clothes.
No socket and no installation
Drumi does not require an electrical connection or permanent installation. The manufacturer proposes it for life off-gridcampers and mobile homes, but also as an alternative to hand washing for those who live in very small spaces. On the official website it is described as a portable washing machine that can be moved thanks to the handle, also used as a safety lock during operation.
The idea also attracted the attention of the design world. In 2019 Drumi received the Red Dot Award: Product Design. The jury had rewarded the combination of mobility and operation without electricity, describing it as a solution especially suitable for travel.
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And here we need a temporal clarification: Drumi is not an invention that just appeared in 2026. The project has been around for several years and the official technical manual even predates the 2019 award. It is back in the spotlight today because the idea of a pedal-operated washing machine retains a certain ability to seem futuristic despite using a decidedly unfuturistic principle: applying mechanical force instead of electricity.
Two kilos are enough for camping
The capacity also immediately indicates the boundary of the object. Two kilos are few compared to current domestic washing machines. For sheets, a family’s towels or the mountain of clothes accumulated during the week, the pedal would quickly lose much of its appeal.
For a few items everything changes. When traveling you can avoid looking for a laundry to wash linens, children’s clothes or sportswear; in a studio apartment it allows you to have a small machine that can be moved once the work is finished. And above all it continues to work even where there is simply no socket.
Then there is the question of availability. The Yirego site continues to feature Drumi, but the currently available product page lists it as $384, sold out. It is therefore better to consider it an existing product but with availability that is far from guaranteed, especially on the European market.
Drumi will hardly dislodge the washing machine from the bathroom at home. After all, putting eight kilos of laundry in the drum and pressing a button retains a certain charm. But when the kilos become two, the space is limited and the grip does not exist, a few minutes of pedaling begins to make much more sense.
