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Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoBut...is it cat compatible? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_SfDru0m_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_SfDru0m_4
- anthonybennis 6y agoThe potential here is amazing. It's very early days, but this is the first Robot I've seen that makes me think home assistant robotics is technically and financially feasible. It does not need to be consumer priced from day one as there are many high value scenarios that could benefit from this robot. For example, home care in Europe costs governments millions every year. Even remotely controlled by a carer would be an application for today.
- Traster 6y agoI would love to be as positive as you. Let's say minimum wage is $15 an hour, what task do you think this robot could do, and how many hours of labour will it save? I don't want to be overly negative, but to honest the way it comes across to me is they've taken a roomba, glued a stick on top of it, zip tied a hoover onto it, and invented a slow, bad roomba.
- Traubenfuchs 6y agoAlternative title: "Startup offers one armed, remote controlled 20.000$ robot on wheels with limited autonomous capabilities" What's the use case besides novelty purposes? Who is supposed to buy this? Solely quadriplegic people come to mind but even that is a stretch and it's far too expensive. This is lightyears away from being a useful consumer object like a vacuum robot. If this is peak robotics, it is very disappointing.
- zelly 6y agoI could never see buying something like this even for $2k because by the time the investment pays for itself the tech would be outdated.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoResearch; as the article states, it's a research platform. It's up to hackers and stuff to come up with ways to use this platform.
- thinkingemote 6y agoHackers with a spare 20K?
- macrolime 6y agoResearch labs
- SrslyJosh 6y ago> Solely quadriplegic people come to mind but even that is a stretch and it's far too expensive. No, it's not. $20k is peanuts compared to the cost of in-home care, especially since that would probably be pro-rated over ~5 years. If they can keep it in that price range and make it useful for simple household tasks (get something from the fridge/pantry/closet, put things in trash, operate a microwave or toaster oven, etc.), this could change a lot of people's lives for the better.
- forgotmypw17 6y agohttp://archive.is/h0yap http://archive.is/h0yap
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- colordrops 6y agoThe base looks like the clearance is too low and wheels too small, but otherwise a nice idea. I'd imagine you could replace the base with a quadruped for better mobility.
- andrewksl 6y agoCross-breed Boston Dynamics' Spot?
- koheripbal 6y agoI imagine they'll improve on that. This bot is purely for research/funding.
- dvh 6y ago$18k
- srg0 6y agoThat's a pretty low price tag. Universal Robots are popular for research, and from what I heard start at around $30k. KUKA LBR iiwa is more like $100-200k.
- bigtones 6y agoBut it can do your washing !
- prerok 6y agoInstabuy if it can iron too! :)
- smabie 6y agoThat seems pretty cheap, tbh.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoDoes it? Having worked with robotics in mfg, part of the cost is stiffness. A stiff arm and mounts means repeatable actions. In the video this thing was flexing all over the place. It’s cool, no doubt. But it seems a well placed LEGO could nearly shut it down. I’m not seeing 18k as “cheap” in any sense here. Maybe I just don’t understand the business model or what goes into this.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- seebetter 6y agoI'd like to buy one and try to have it build a robot like itself. Would I be able to sell them? Maybe now but not the version in 2040.
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- seanhunter 6y agoFeels like it would overbalance given how lightweight and tall it is - any time it tried to pick anything up that was even slightly heavy it would just fall over.
- mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y agoWhen it lifts something, it can apply the force gradually. When that force approaches the tipping limit, it would abandon the lift.
- bArray 6y agoDetecting how heavy an object is would be possible - also those grippers will simply not grasp something too heavy. Your big problem will be simply in not detecting some object that coat-hangers it. Let's not pretend a consumer model is even remotely ready though, these scenarios are highly contrived. The goal at the current time is research, and at that price point there are a few options available.
- tmikaeld 6y agoSeems very slow, guess robotics really is hard.
- beisner 6y agoWe know how to make fast robots, we know how to make safe robots, and we know how to make useful robots. But we do not know how to make fast, safe, useful robots. A faster robot would need to be heavier to do the same work. Any robot that can move as fast as a human and perform similar work to a human will need to be close to as strong/heavy as a human. And humans can kill each other with their bare hands; we just know not to. A Kuka LBR iiwa can only lift 7-14kg, but could easily accidentally kill/maim someone with common payloads of that mass. Obviously there's also some slowness w.r.t. the actual control here (i.e. safety pauses, planning latency, etc.), but it's a tall order to build any kind of home robot - especially one that has such a large workspace - that is intelligent enough to be both fast and safe.
- tmikaeld 6y agoThat's a very good point, which I guess can't really be solved since we'd always have to trust the software in one way or another.
- dzink 6y agoRe-enforcement learning would be fun on this one.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 6y agoI'm looking forward to the day a small home robot can do the dishes, in the sink – replacing a dishwasher machine. This looks like a small step in that direction.
- arketyp 6y agoAnd it seems like an actual first step, as opposed to the various gimmicky anthropomorphs we've gotten used to seeing. If this thing could be set to clean the kid's room during a working day, or programmed to water the plants when I'm away, that's substantial progress.
- mNovak 6y agoWondering what the benefit of a dishwashing robot is? Better off just wishing for a more convenient / compact dishwasher, I think.
- Animats 6y agoSomething that hits stubborn spots with a water jet would be useful. More for commercial dishwashing, though.
- yongjik 6y agoIt takes me an inordinate amount of time to place objects into the dishwasher so that it doesn't have 50% wasted space. Also if you eat East Asian dishes you will have tons of sticky bits of rice, and a dishwasher never seems to be able to scrub them. (Maybe it will if I run it extra hot, but then it will damage plastic lids. You can't win.)
- gojomo 6y agoGeneral-purpose arms that can, as a matter of software, do dishes could take up less space, put the clean dishes away, and then do other things, too, like simple food prep, surface cleaning, other 'straightening up', etc.
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoThat’s the exact opposite of how most robotics are going for more specialized machines, not less. It is an interesting prospect, but what would be saved in space would be lost in more energy and water used (not to mention hygiene, we’ve used our dishwasher a lot more since we have had a kid to disinfect).
- ragebol 6y agoMobile base with a long stick on top, camera on top of the stick and arm moving up and down the the stick: I'd say that's a proven design featured in many custom-built robots for RoboCup@Home. This has some potential.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoI just don't know why it's costing 20K. Maybe because it's not mass-produced?
- spyckie2 6y agoThings it can't do: - go up stairs - get up after a fall / reset itself - pick up heavy objects - precise motion (so no cooking) - interact with buttons or touch screens (so laundry might be hard) The one use case I think it might be worth it is if the robot can take a room full of toys and return everything back to where it belongs. Kind of like a one click, reset this room. If it can help me keep organized and clean around the house that would be a big win. Also, if it can help me detect which clothes are still wearable and which I should probably wash, that'd be nice. I'd gladly pay 5k for a robot that can auto-organize my stuff around the house, even if it involves a lot of customization and setup. Imagine leaving your groceries next to the fridge and coming back to a perfectly organized fridge. Or letting your kids play in the play room and then the robot comes in and puts all the toys back. Or if you just tend to leave stuff out (throw your clothes on the floor or forget to return stuff), the robot can put it back. I think that's a legit use case.
- _cs2017_ 6y ago> Or if you just tend to leave stuff out (throw your clothes on the floor or forget to return stuff), the robot can put it back. You don't need the robot for the first part. I never found the second part that valuable.
- yencabulator 6y ago> - interact with buttons or touch screens (so laundry might be hard) What makes you say that? All it needs is a "knuckle" on the backside of the grasping arm, to push things with. We already make gloves that work with touchscreens, so the knuckle can work with them also. Vision is the harder part.
- tripzilch 6y agoWhen I saw the video I was mainly thinking about all the things it might be able to help my elderly grandmother with. I mean I get that luxury and convenience of this robot taking care of stuff that you find boring or tedious, but imagine this robot being able to do certain normal every-day stuff that you're actually no longer able to do yourself? (Or maybe you're capable but it hurts to do, you get the idea) A few years ago I had my leg in a cast, and I'm just thinking if this robot could've helped me put on my sock?
- Jack000 6y agoI'm always surprised how much these things cost. A 3 axis CNC is basically a 3 degree-of-freedom robot, yet only costs a few hundred dollars. I think we'll see mobile autonomous robots come into people's homes only after they: - fall to low thousands price range - do something useful (ie. not just a "social robot")
- pgt 6y agoI suspect the cost of the (presumably) Lithium-Ion battery is a significant chunk of change. Also, economies of scale in this form factor.
- imtringued 6y agoI think you forgot a zero there. A 3 axis CNC mill usually costs a few thousands of dollars. There are some crappy CNC engravers and dirt cheap 3D printers but the rigidity requirements are so low that they are a completely different class of machine.
- Jack000 6y agoThere is a pretty big range of prices. The cheap Chinese ones aren't necessarily well built but they work fine for hobbyist stuff. Motors, motor controllers + motion system are cheap enough for affordable home robots I think. The problem is automating actual tasks with the limitations of the motor controls.
- asd4 6y agoUnfortunately the controls problem gets much harder in a non-rigid system. Now you have to solve autonomy AND overcome poor sensing and manipulation.
- macrolime 6y agoYou can get cheap open source robots if you build it yourself. They still can't do anything useful though.
- joshu 6y ago
- nick0garvey 6y agoThe idea of it being controlled by a remote person makes me feel like a new breed of gig-jobs could be around the corner. Buy a robot, and pay someone remotely to do your housekeeping for you. The housekeeper could even operate it from their smartphones.
- hardwaresofton 6y agoPay a robot[0] to operate a robot[0]. [0]: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/robot https://www.thefreedictionary.com/robot
- vyrotek 6y agoSomething like this? https://futurism.com/robot-waiters-paralysis https://futurism.com/robot-waiters-paralysis
- russellbeattie 6y agoActually, I imagine these robots connected to video game consoles so people with OCD from around the world can compete to see who can clean and organize real houses faster or more efficiently... Who needs a gig economy when you can gameify it!
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIs that what Human Viscera Cleanup was training us for?
- typingmonkey 6y agoUntil 4chan comes and makes a challenge about who can remotely burn down a house faster. I think you need someone being personally responsible that the robot does not destroy stuff and people will not do this for free.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoWhy remote? There's plenty of people nearby you can hire that can do the job better, faster, and cheaper. The only downside is that you've got a real person in your house, but honestly if that's a hangup then you need to suck it up and just do the work yourself.
- emmanueloga_ 6y agoThis is quite literally a USD 18,000 "reacher" [1]. I remember a reacher being a pretty successful present last time I played "white elephant gift exchange" :-). 1: https://www.amazon.com/Reacher-Foldable-Lightweight-Reaching-Extension/dp/B078RMCFWQ https://www.amazon.com/Reacher-Foldable-Lightweight-Reaching...
- re 6y ago> “I had this idea that there are these assistive grabbers that people with disabilities use to grasp objects in the real world,” he told us. Kemp went on Amazon’s website and looked at the top 10 grabbers and the reviews from thousands of users. He then bought a bunch of different ones and started testing them. “This one [Stretch’s gripper], I almost didn’t order it, it was such a weird looking thing,” he says. “But it had great reviews on Amazon, and oh my gosh, it just blew away the other grabbers. And I was like, that’s it. It just works.” There's a few "grabbers"/"reachers" that have a gripper that looks pretty similar to the Stretch's; I'm not sure if there's an "original" that the others are clones of: https://amzn.com/B07RR6N9C7 https://amzn.com/B07RR6N9C7 https://amzn.com/B0812B4TF1 https://amzn.com/B0812B4TF1 https://amzn.com/B01MAW25UW https://amzn.com/B01MAW25UW
- lnsru 6y agoRobots have a big problem - price tag. Research robot for $18k, Spot for $75k, single robot arm moving stuff from A to B - $50k+. How many organizations can afford that? No wonder, that robot adoption is extremely slow.
- kelnos 6y agoIf something like this succeeds to the point of mass production, I could easily see the retail price been cut by 75% or more. That might be a big "if", though. I imagine a bit of the current price tag is "we want serious purchasers who will be partners in the development of this device"; they don't want to build them for people who will just dick around with it for a bit and then relegate it to the corner of the room.
- blueblisters 6y agoExactly. At mass production, the marginal cost of building a robot will be similar to that of an automobile. The value it provides (depending on the application) will be similar too, if not greater.
- smolder 6y agoYeah I don't think the world needs household robots that are disposable. I'd expect them to be a similar investment to a high end car in the interest of a lower total cost of ownership over long timeframes. It would ultimately be very expensive to make wave upon wave of "cheap" high tech landfill fodder. What I'd like to see is standardized interchangeable parts and configurable software so we can spec robots to their tasks and benefit from reuse of parts and code as much as possible.
- shmageggy 6y agoAt the point when control algorithms get good enough for them to be easily trainable to high performance on varied tasks, that price becomes quite cheap.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt's because they're specialist gear for generic purposes; if they discover a problem that can be solved by automation, they'll invent and mass produce a machine for a singular task (reading other comments, think of dishwashers and washing machines. They're robots for a specific task, price-optimized down to the $250 - $1000 price range)
- Qu3tzal 6y agoIn the demo video, for every basic task it needs some setup by a human (see how they fixed stuff on the stretchable arm for every action other than picking-up something) and all the interesting tasks were teleoperated. I don't care about teleoperation, for a home robot I want automation.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoThat reminds me of a book I read as a kid: "My Trip to Alpha I" by Alfred Slote [0]. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3201020-my-trip-to-alpha-i https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3201020-my-trip-to-alpha...
- panabee 6y agothis is very cool. could anyone help break down the costs? specifically: 1. what are the most expensive parts, and how fast is technology advancing (or costs declining) on those parts? 2. what scale is necessary for a comparable robot to retail for < $1000?
- sbierwagen 6y ago1) Most expensive individual third-party components would be all the servos together, then the computer, then the realsense, then the lidar. All the custom body panels and custom cut carbon fiber extrusions are expensive now, cheap when scaled. 2) 5,000 - 50,000? Right now it's about twice as expensive per kilo as a Lamborghini Aventador, and they only made ~4,000 of those. It needs to be 18x cheaper to hit your price target, and that wouldn't be impossible at scale. A big chunk of the price tag is generous margin (because they don't know how many they'll sell) and paying for the software, which amortizes well. Those costs go away at scale, but then you need to spin up tech support and a repair department. I do tech support for educational robots, and I can tell you it's not... simple, or profitable. Getting to that number would be hard. The design of the robot is wonderfully simple, (great! delightful!) but it's too easy to clone: the only complicated bit is the telescoping arm. Everything else is open source or commodity parts off the shelf. If they actually do sell a thousand of these, the Chinese will rush in and eat their margin. I hope either they have patents and some aggressive lawyers, or friends high up in the Biden administration, because if the design is successful, their company won't survive international competition.
- janekm 6y agoThe telescoping arm is cute, and provides benefits for reaching into constrained spaces like a washing machine, but in the first clones it would likely be replaced with the standard "cylindrical" (e.g. industrial robot style) arm. Hard to imagine that they could have gotten a patent on "robot arm on Segway". The elevator part though?
- sbierwagen 6y agoA conventional arm? Oh no thank you. Heavier, need a motor out on the elbow joint with another expensive low-backlash gearbox, mast has to be heavier to support the off-axis torque loads, grasp trajectories have another DOF or two. Skip that, please. And it's not like conventional arms are even cheap! If you could buy a decent 1.5 kilo payload arm for less than $5k, you'd have a whole different argument. From the way the telescoping arm moves, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts it's driven by a flex-tape linear actuator. Pretty cheap, lets you put the heavy motor right next to the mast, no precision bearings, backlash not so much a problem. The whole package really is a great design, I'm a big fan. You can tell Edsinger has been using robots out in the real world, with regular people beating them up.
- Animats 6y agoNice. Certainly more affordable than the huge Willow Garage machine, although that could fold laundry. This thing will probably be showing up in robot research labs. If they sold a reasonable number it could be much cheaper. The arm is not very rigid. Notice there's a barcode target on the end effector base (the "wrist") where the camera can see it. So the system can compensate for some bend. That's in some ways better than building a super-rigid structure. I'm surprised there isn't a camera or two out at the end of the arm, for fine positioning. Cell phone camera parts are so cheap now that's a no-brainer.
- mleonhard 6y agoIn 2014, I was at Google and went to an open house event at the Google robotics lab in SF. The people I met there were nice. I almost applied for a job there. Then I looked up the person who would have been my boss. He was scowling in his Google profile photo. His LinkedIn showed him as founder of a robotics company, with no mention of Google. He obviously wanted to be the CEO of a robotics company, not a director in Google. Google acquired many robotics companies in 2013. I believe most of the acquired companies' leaders had contracts requiring them to stay at Google for 4 years. Did Google delay the progress of robotic technology by 4 years? The VC model obviously helps enable human progress in many situations. But surely not all situations. How can we know when the VC model will be a net loss for humanity? I'm glad to see those folks moving on and following their dreams.
- edf13 6y agoInteresting point - did Google delay robotics by 4 years. How many other areas are also effected by this 4 year lock-in period...
- imtringued 6y agoWhat if this created demand and funding for robotics companies? It's not like you are forced to sell your company to Google.
- frozenport 6y agoIf you're the CEO and your investors want a soft landing, there is little you can do.
- enumjorge 6y agoYou’re not forced to but few people won’t take a huge bag of money if offered one, especially if it’s their first one.
- frozenport 6y agoGoogle was also more against developing military applications which have been the historic routes for developing physically realizable but costly technologies (such as the computer).
- semi_good 6y ago> ex googler Does this mean we get lots of hype and an inferior product that is eventually phased out an replaced by an acquisition built by non-google engineers?
- daenz 6y agoIt just goes to show you the latent "value" of having a FAANG position on your resume. People are always looking for shortcuts to making value judgments about people/ideas, and this is another one of those shortcuts.
- cosmodisk 6y agoHave a few of these on LinkedIn. "Ex Google Engineer" as a title for more than two years,while trying to bootstrap his own niche product/platform.
- mav3rick 6y agoAnother jealous HNer
- koheripbal 6y agoI'm going to just start putting that on all my PR. Ex-Googler. No one is going to check, and if it biases the opinions of idiots... so be it...
- ideals 6y agoI'm an Ex-Googler, I used to use Google but now I use duckduckgo :)
- mav3rick 6y agoThe sooner you're exposed as a fraud the better. So please definitely use it :)
- koheripbal 6y agoThe reality is that unless you're well known - no one cares if you lie about this stuff.
- russellbeattie 6y ago"As of right now, Stretch is very much a research platform." That was buried way too low in the article for most HN commenters to bother getting to. Maybe this fact will help refocus the conversation from what this thing can't do to what it might be able to with some more work. Personally, I think it looks innovative. Adding a relatively inexpensive telescoping arm and some LiDAR to a Roomba could be another evolutionary step forward in home robotics. I can easily imagine wiring this thing up to Alexa and asking it to go get me a drink from the fridge. That alone would be worth a few hundred bucks when it becomes a commercial product.
- Someone 6y agoThat’s the journalist’s fault. The manufacturer’s site is clear about it. https://hello-robot.com/product https://hello-robot.com/product: Stretch™ Research Edition A new kind of robot. […] A Robot for Researchers by Researchers I couldn’t find specs on typical battery life (would likely vary a lot, but still, any indicator would help) but it has an 18Ah battery (ballpark “3 laptops”), an Intel i5-8259U, 16GB of RAM and a 480GB SSD.
- numpad0 6y agoLooking like a 3D printer with camera gimbal attached to the carriage is bolted atop a robot vacuum...
- suyash 6y agoDesign is either lacking or ugly (industrial) not suited for most homes.
- netcan 6y agoFor anyone in the space, how substantial is the "research robot" market? What's realistic, hundreds of units, thousands?
- gexla 6y agoKids' chores 2000: Take out the trash, 2 minutes. Kid's chores 2020: Up until 3AM programming the robot to take out the trash. Purchased the robot two weeks ago. Kid only moves to go to sleep. Trash is building up. No other chores are getting done. Chores dashboard is flashing red. Take out trash sprint way overdue.
- whymauri 6y agoChores and trash sprint tasks moved to Jira backlog. The toast your robot put in the microwave for 4.nannannan minutes is now on fire. In the distance: sirens.
- Apofis 6y agoAh, the future.
- koheripbal 6y agoThis is funny. The main chore I want a robot to do is laundry. I'd pay good money if a robot could simply put the clothes of the hamper in the laundry machine, transfer to the dryer, and then put them away.
- kwhitefoot 6y agoJust buy a washer drier. Don't have a hamper just put the laundry in the machine until it is full then switch it on. Go out to work, come home to clothes washed and dried. Granted, you do have to take them out and put them away.
- 0xffff2 6y ago>Just buy a washer drier. I live in an apartment with shared laundry >Granted, you do have to take them out and put them away. Which is by far the most time consuming part of doing laundry
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
- heikkilevanto 6y agoAlready now this looks like a very useful tool for a person who is bound to a wheelchair. It can easily reach things at different heights, including floor level, which is hard from a wheelchair. Its base is smaller than a wheelchair, so it can get into narrower spaces. Such person probably has an open, level, and uncluttered floor plan already, which works well for the robot. Accessories, such as the vacuum cleaner, can be installed by the operator (after the robot fetches them). Autonomy is great when it works, but even slow teleoperation is better than having to have a helper around 24/7.
- dt3ft 6y agoI see this being used by low cost remote operators to cleanup your room or do your laundry. Autonomy is still a gimmick, but imagine if you can pay $50/month so that a reliable remote operator (entire armies of call centres will turn into remote robot operators) swipes every surface with a cloth?
- gridlockd 6y agoOut of curiosity, what kind of robot can you get out of Asia for $20,000?
- blueblisters 6y agoI can totally imagine this being Amazon's next big play. They already have a decent in-house robotics team working on warehouse automation. Some of that knowledge could be spun-off into a consumer robotics unit. Alphabet will be left catching up again like with AWS and Echo.
- pgt 6y agoSomething the Stretch bot gets right is that it doesn't trigger uncanny valley revulsion like the torso-shaped PR2 does with its Terminator eyes. They managed to make this bot feel like an appliance or a mobile coat hanger - almost like an endearing doofus. I think this will be key to mass adoption. On the other hand, those Boston Dynamics robo-dogs with their snakelike extensions reminds me far too much of the Fido enemy (a.k.a. Parasite) from Quake 2: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/quake/images/d/d2/Parasite.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/185?cb=20130427135231 http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/quake/images/d/d2/Parasi...
- pplonski86 6y agoThe link to hello robot github https://github.com/hello-robot https://github.com/hello-robot
- zwischenzug 6y agoThat's funny. Just yesterday I wrote a blog post that mentioned telerobotics [1], as I've become interested in how the global economy has changed since 1990. The book I was reading that inspired it (which I thoroughly recommend) [2] talked about how telerobotics was going to help break down the last of three constraints on globalisation: moving people. The other two are: cost of movement of goods (1st modern industrial revolution); and the cost of moving knowledge (the 2nd modern revolution, since 1990). One of the things argued is that cleaners and dog walkers (for example) can't be moved, so a paradox of high skills economies is that certain low-skill jobs become more valuable. $20K is getting frighteningly close to start making it more economical to have someone operate such a cleaning machine remotely from a low cost area than hiring a local cleaner. Skilled operators could even (with the help of AI?) operate dozens of these at once. Or they could do the 'easy' stuff, and get a 'proper' local cleaner in once in a while to do the tricky bits or a deep clean. Interesting times. [1] - https://zwischenzugs.com/2020/07/13/why-do-we-have-dev-rels-now/ https://zwischenzugs.com/2020/07/13/why-do-we-have-dev-rels-... [2] - https://www.amazon.com/Great-Convergence-Information-Technology-Globalization/dp/0674237846 https://www.amazon.com/Great-Convergence-Information-Technol...
- zurfer 6y agoThat's an interesting train of thought, but I hope it is not the future. The world population is still growing. Labour is still the biggest wealth distribution system for most people. To eliminate "low-skill" jobs seems like an inhumane way forward. It will likely increase inequality. Also to take your example: walking a dog can also be considered a high-skill job. Sure you don't need a degree, but you need empathy and kindness. Pretty hard to teach to some people.
- choonway 6y agoimagine thousands of years ago, if you were very rich, you would stay away from rivers because of the risk of flooding - but you still needed a source of water - so you hire people to carry water from the streams to your home. how would you automate that? by building robots to carry the water containers? what is the optimal solution may not be the most obvious.
- biolurker1 6y agoI wonder why ex-faang company needs to be mentioned as a description of the founder.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y agoWhy not? Most normal people would take that as a sign that the founder has already had a sucessful career in tech, because "FAANG" don't hire mediocre workers. The journalists knowing this trend, use this information to communicate this to people, speaking in their language. (Also this language makes some sense as well.) I don't see a problem.
- biolurker1 6y agoThat makes people desperately fighting for a job for a year there so they can have that honorable title. Not bad per se
- driverdan 6y ago> because "FAANG" don't hire mediocre workers Their propaganda is working well I see. Having a Stanford degree and being able to answer CS questions (two things FAANG companies love) does not guarantee you'll be a good worker.
- baybal2 6y agoI'm not impressed. It is not a "grand engineering breakthrough" by any stretch of imagination.
- 0xFFFFFFFA 6y agoThe main thing I see missing in these comments is the approach from the other end. There will be a tipping point where appliance makers design small features to make their products “robot friendly.” Like making openings larger, buttons larger and otherwise easier for cheaper robots to interact with. And it will create a feedback loop where robots get more popular because they can do more in a robot enabled home, and because they are more popular they get better, and because they are better they get more popular. Let’s be honest, the roomba sucks, so It’s not really a counter argument. Once there is a robot that is useful and also seen as a status symbol, that’s when the feedback loop will begin.
- m12k 6y agoI think this should be looked at similarly to e-readers that came before Kindle or smartphones from before the iPhone. It's not 'there' yet, but it shows the directions things can go, and can help pave the way toward something that deserves mass adoption. Bringing down the price is a big step, so more people can try it out and maybe even discover a niche where it's already 'good enough' for some task.
- fit2rule 6y agoCould this be scaled down to the desktop to be used for pick and place projects? If so, might be a revolutionary upgrade for the makers ..
- mikeruhl 6y agoPeople are complaining about what this can't do, but for the disabled, the simple things it can do is going to be monumental. I see this as an amazing tool for the disabled, not a "beer me bot" for the lazy. EDIT: And I should add, I hope they market this to that severely underserved market. If they only market it as a product for the rich to do simple tasks, it will suffer Segway's fate. If they create a market for it in healthcare and partner with those already in that space, this could be something big. It would pay for itself for people who need 24/7 care, if it were reliable enough.
- koheripbal 6y agoFor me the ability to do laundry alone is worth $$$. That is 90% of the reason I have maid service (family of 5).
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- tuna-piano 6y agoIt's so obvious what is needed to help these take off: an app/skill store with an easy development environment. Would assume the order goes something like this: $20k robot -> robot app/skill store -> Killer apps??? -> More volume ->... $3k robot -> More apps/skills -> $1k robot -> Everyone has one.
- andy_ppp 6y agoMy guess is that this will need two arms to do many things!
- basicplus2 6y agoI prefer these... https://boingboing.net/2016/06/08/the-amazing-shitty-robots-of.html https://boingboing.net/2016/06/08/the-amazing-shitty-robots-...
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago> The arm was “one of the most significant engineering challenges on the robot There's not much to the robot besides the arm, so, um, yeah?
- mistrial9 6y agoContrarian point of view -- (edit) this clever device overall takes too much capital and solves no real problem, meanwhile pressing and urgent problems needing tech, remain unaddressed, year after year. For centuries, real, physical actions in home life were improved with (mainly mechanical) devices subject to patent. The industrial revolution provides vast flows of consumer goods. Finance prospered (mainly) with loans, interest, and selling inventions like these, on large markets. Fast forward 100+ years. Daily life is unimaginably easy, due to mass market goods for cheap, standardized living and generally, massive energy use. Markets constantly create products designed to be profitable given some game rules. Yet, there are diminishing returns. Vast, serious, ok yes urgent challenges face individuals and society, right now, and have been known for several decades. An analogy might be the stunning success of mathematics in physics over the last 100+ years, sends multiple other soft sciences scouring math for certain curves or constants, because it worked for physics. Repeatedly, social science for example, is subject to physics-like curves and constants, searching for computable understanding, which is probably not appropriate to the endeavor. The market is scouring product space, using formulas from long ago, to make the "killer" product. They say it here in the comments. This is to make money for people who are already very wealthy, using formulas that include massive diminishing returns (huge capital, you bet), and basically solve no real problem. Labor is over-abundant in modern times. People are living in isolation in Western Cities, and this is an isolation device. A very modest arrangement with a living person who needs work to earn money in the city, would solve the "problem" here, and requires no capital. I suggest these talented, funded inventors look more deeply at the real ecosystem we are faced with overall, and get off of the gerbil wheel of get-rich personal consumption devices, because overall, societal survival actually does depend on tech right now.
- koheripbal 6y agoSocietal survival depends on societies accepting the use of existing technology - nuclear power.
- rockostrich 6y agoI hate seeing this in every single Reddit or HN thread about the future of energy. Nuclear power is a great option but it isn't the end all be all of energy. It's just another (probably less harmful than fossil fuels) stopgap.
- slashblake 6y agoGreat, now I can home from work!
- aj7 6y agoUtterly fails the site test, just like that gyroscopic scooter. And when it comes to a robot, the sight test matters.
- karaterobot 6y agoSeems like progress in personal robotics has been incremental at best ever since Paulie had that robot deliver him a drink way back in Rocky IV (1985).
- PedroBatista 6y agoFrom a customer and person outside the SV Chocolate Factory bubble perspective this is a $18K Roomba with coat stand.
- rdlecler1 6y agoHere’s a more practical example of this kind of design and the robots don’t cost much more. https://scoutsomerville.com/wp-content/uploads/MG_4809-1.jpg https://scoutsomerville.com/wp-content/uploads/MG_4809-1.jpg
- unclewalter 6y agoShoes on the table!
- thisisbrians 6y agoI admire the hard work that surely went into this, but I have to say: as a former robotics hobbyist, I'm extremely unimpressed with the weight, cost, and limited capabilities of this thing. And that impression is based on the technology we had over a decade ago. With access to a few machine tools and a 3d printer, I'd bet an equally capable prototype would cost no more than a few hundred dollars. No wonder almost no one has a robot in their home.
- tmpz22 6y agoYa but did you know the founder used to work at google?
- jamesrcole 6y agoWell then you probably have a pretty compelling business opportunity on your hands.
- wintorez 6y agoObviously the design is not perfect, but I think this is a step in the right direction, as in, a robot does not have to be a bipedal humanoid to be useful.
- deegles 6y agoAre any tele-robots used in agriculture? I could imagine using AI to get the robot hands within a few inches of each piece of produce or a desired task and then one operator could quickly swap between many robots.
- cwkoss 6y agoI think some tractors have tele-operation capability, but the farmer typically sits within them to monitor operations
- Robotbeat 6y agoLooks nice, but $20k??
- kwhitefoot 6y ago> he hopes to see the robot deployed in home environments, It will need bigger wheels or legs then because it would be stuck in one room in my house because of the thresholds at each doorway and the rugs and carpets. And my house has three stories so I would need three of them because it can't climb stairs. It's getting tiresome to read crap like this because while it might work in a dwelling purpose built for it it is guaranteed useless in most dwellings occupied by real people right now.
- birdyrooster 6y agoWith three stories you can afford three robots. Imagine being the operator waiting for these things to go up and down stairs, that sucks.
- ogre_codes 6y agoThey dropped the ball on the demo. If they really wanted to blow me away they'd have demonstrated the robot opening the fridge and bringing me a beer. A bit more seriously, this is a research platform. Maybe in 5-10 years it'll prove to be the seed of some interesting tech, but right now it's just a lab experiment. If you buy this and expect it to do basic housework for you, you are destined to be disappointed.
- brutus1213 6y agoA lot of excellent discussion here. A few years back at CES, I saw the concept of an appliance that will automatically fold your laundry. It was amazing to see (yet IMO a hoax). I maintain a robust and cheap solution to make the bed or fold laundry could be a game changer.
- jcun4128 6y agoDamn that's a price tag
- nobbis 6y agoFor comparison, here's the PR1 from 12 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyHWkQcin7I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyHWkQcin7I
- alpineidyll3 6y agoSomeone should repost as soon as a 200$ Xiaomi clone is available.