For years, washing machine makers have been upselling consumers on pricey but pretty much useless pedestals to put under their front-loading machines. At best, these products have been expensive metal drawers that save your back by forcing you to not bend over as far. But this morning at International CES, LG introduced a novel idea — stick a smaller washing machine in the pedestal.

So users of the new devices would be able to do two loads (or really, one and a half) at the same time. LG is pushing the mini washer as a good place to put your delicates or when you really need to keep your bright red T-shirt away from your crisp white work short.

And for the busy family that is constantly doing laundry, it could be a time-saver, claims LG.

What’s nice is that this appears to be a standalone product that can be added to any existing LG front-loading machine. So you can replace that basically useless pedestal you’re using now and gain washing capacity without having to buy an entirely new main machine.

Of course, we don’t yet know what this will cost or whether it will perform well at doing what’s most important — cleaning your clothes — so right now it’s a good idea that we expect others to follow.

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