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Robot Makers Fill Their War Chests in Fight Against Amazon
- dogruck 9y agoGenuine question — is $70 million, spread across +4 different competing companies, a lot of money, for an industry like robot makers? Or, said another way, if the article had said the companies collectively raised $700 million, I don’t think I would’ve been surprised. Can someone provide context?
- rubidium 9y agoI'm guessing at numbers from my limited experience, but a new robot development (let's say with some sophisticated features either hardware or software--not both) is probably a 20-50 person development. Salary (in normal land, not crazy west coast land) for a 2.5 year development is 6-15 million. Material cost runs 10-40% more. So expect something like 4-10 new robot platforms coming out as a result of this. In a market where there's not a plethora of vendors, that's respectable. If anyone has more direct experience I'd be happy to be corrected.
- petra 9y agoIs robotics currently limited mostly by money, i.e. with enough investment we could accelerate the robotic future significantly ? or is it mostly the need for new, better ideas?
- ProAm 9y agoI think most companies don't expect to burn cash in needless ways that most startups are expected. It's very possible to take what many consider a sizable investment and use it to continue development of an actual product. Where as most startups take money like this, make spaghetti, throw it at the wall and see what sticks.
- amelius 9y agoSounds like another race to the bottom.
- eru 9y agoThat's the point. If you mean bottom of cost, that is. Humans have better things to do than grueling warehouse jobs.
- QAPereo 9y agoThey aren’t doing those jobs because they like it, they need it. Sure, they have better things to do, but step one is always, “don’t starve” right? Taking their marginal living and waiting for some mystical market force to save them is just... shitty.
- protonfish 9y agoI am starting to get annoyed by the overloaded term "robot." This article is really about automated warehouses. That is interesting, but is sufficiently advanced automation truly robotics? If so, where does it cross that line? Many hobbyist "robotics" (think BattleBots) are just remote-controlled vehicles. Neither have autonomous behavior. It'd be nice to have terms for each but I can't think of what would be appropriate.
- sspiff 9y agoI hope this leads to the revival the use of the truly awesome word "automaton" for autonomous robots!
- protonfish 9y agoCool. I would have preferred "android" but Google's smartphones ruined that.
- canthonytucci 9y agoedit : sorry, this was what I was looking for, https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/ https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/
- kiba 9y agoMy definition of a 'robot' is a machine with motor functions and can make its own decision on how to act in reaction to its environment. For example, a phone isn't a robot, not unless you give it wheels and the ability to act.
- swarnie_ 9y ago$70 million is not competition for Amazon, $700 million is almost a rounding error in this context
- corpMaverick 9y agoThis is what I think no one will be able to compete with amazon on warehouse logistics. Kiva's model of bringing the shelf to the picker is hard to improve upon. And it is probably patented.
- Element_ 9y agoThere are plenty of Kiva competitors from German and Asian manufacturers. Some of the Chinese systems even use the same Kiva-style modules to do other tasks like package mail sorting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6a0HROB054 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6a0HROB054 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QndP_PCRSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QndP_PCRSw
- Symmetry 9y agoWell, you could replace the pickers with robots, for instance. https://www.righthandrobotics.com/ https://www.righthandrobotics.com/