4 ms·
Robotic toys is a tough area. Higher than standard toy development costs, relatively limited market / higher cost products and similar challenges to being in a
by xt00 7y ago
Robotic toys is a tough area. Higher than standard toy development costs, relatively limited market / higher cost products and similar challenges to being in a toy market. I mean — they probably could have pivoted to self driving car software or something.. too bad.
- sytelus 7y agoI don't think so. I know folks in education where there is huge money and demand for such toys. You still have to prepare great program, tools and have right connection but if you can do it then you get a sell of thousands of robots in one sweep. Virtually every public school (in well off areas) is dying to introduce robotics. Almost every district has some sort of robotics competition going on. When I drive to work, I see about half dozen street signs for robotics/stem summer camps. I might be biased living in tech heavy crowd but I hear its same in districts which have decent amount of money. Besides education, robotics toys is high in demand for kids. Consistently many top 10 Christmas toys have been toys that were claimed to be robots but unfortunately they are just scams with few pre-programmed things. Cosmo is one of the best robot built for kids besides Lego Boost and Mindstorm for older kids. It was definitely bit expensive and lacking good marketing outside of tech crowd but it was a real robotic toy and deserved better outcome.
- lsaferite 7y agoThey never considered themselves a toy maker. The first 3 products were considered toys and a means to an end. Their 4th product was them trying to transition to their long-term goal of being a Robotics and AI tech company. The 5th product that was in R&D was certainly not a toy.