4 ms·

They bleed money and are not revenue positive yet. And all those re-acquisitions indicate that none of their parent company could provide a nurturing environmen

They bleed money and are not revenue positive yet. And all those re-acquisitions indicate that none of their parent company could provide a nurturing environment to enable the company to make profit. My two cents. If not military use or a very expensive niche use, e.g. for emergency services, then those things will have a pretty hard time to enter the mass-consumer market. What will probably happen is that a Chinese company will be able to produce a 80% version of those machines for less than 1k. This is when those things will become interesting to consumers for whatever purpose those things can be used. As long as the SPOT robot costs over 70k, nobody will even consider buying it.

helsinkiandrew 5y ago
Unitree's Go1 is currently $2.7K. I commented on the HN thread below that if walking robots have any use/future - A company like Unitree could become the DJI of the industry and make Boston Dynamics even more of a niche player than it already is. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27569631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27569631
- accurrent 5y ago
  As someone who has worked with both Unitree and Boston Dynamics I can tell you there is a marked difference in the ability for Boston dynamic's ability to walk vs Unitree's. The ANYMal is closer to Boston Dynamic's capabilities but also at a similar price point. That being said what Unitree is lacking is good software so theres a chance that they may be able to incrementally catch up while maintaining a relatively low pricepoint. I don't think we're gonna see a DJI moment any time soon in this space purely because the other algorithms around this area are still in their infancy. Furthermore, motor prices don't seem to have fallen all that much making innovation in this space much harder than with drones.
  - jcims 5y ago
    You can see this in the Unitree videos, nearly everything is on a flat plane and while it was a video from 2019 it seemed to struggle climbing stairs a bit.
    - echelon 5y ago
      But they'll sell at a higher volume and be able to reinvest in R&D. Boston Dynamics needed constant injection of capital.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Forgive me if I'm wrong but I though motors aren't the main cost, rather the rest of the actuator? Also Unitree is going to make so much money selling these as well as get so much mass producing experience they'll probably be able to figure out the algorithms. Methinks the code is easier to figure out than reliable and cheap hardware.
    - jcims 5y ago
      The motor usually makes up about a third, the motor controller another third and the planetary gears and enclosure the final third.
sdflhasjd 5y ago
Where does 70k even go?
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  The high cost components of a robot like this are: Actuators, motor drivers, batteries, compute, sensors, and mechanical components. I did not reference SPOTs specs but it must be full of low volume custom parts (expensive). They are honestly probably selling them at little to no profit as $70k is about how much a low volume custom research robot might cost in parts. But I could see them getting SPOT down to $20k in parts, but then you still need to do assembly which is going to be very hands on with technicians doing assembly and test engineers checking components. And one could imagine they'd like it if they could manage some profit. IDK it all adds up robots are super expensive.
- ionwake 5y ago
  1- Unitrees robot looks identical - though it looks like it lacks Lidar? 2- Is the Unitree robot so similar because of talent poaching or just a coincidence? 3-How could a person invest in a company like unitree? Thanks
  - helsinkiandrew 5y ago
    The more expensive versions of the Go1 have Lidar. Robot dogs are going to look like dogs - a body with legs. According to the about page, the CEO has been developing quadruped robots since 2013 (his masters thesis). https://www.unitree.com/aboutus https://www.unitree.com/aboutus Looks like they've take venture capital money: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unitree-robotics https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unitree-robotics

helsinkiandrew 5y ago

Unitree's Go1 is currently $2.7K. I commented on the HN thread below that if walking robots have any use/future - A company like Unitree could become the DJI of the industry and make Boston Dynamics even more of a niche player than it already is. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27569631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27569631

accurrent 5y ago
As someone who has worked with both Unitree and Boston Dynamics I can tell you there is a marked difference in the ability for Boston dynamic's ability to walk vs Unitree's. The ANYMal is closer to Boston Dynamic's capabilities but also at a similar price point. That being said what Unitree is lacking is good software so theres a chance that they may be able to incrementally catch up while maintaining a relatively low pricepoint. I don't think we're gonna see a DJI moment any time soon in this space purely because the other algorithms around this area are still in their infancy. Furthermore, motor prices don't seem to have fallen all that much making innovation in this space much harder than with drones.
- jcims 5y ago
  You can see this in the Unitree videos, nearly everything is on a flat plane and while it was a video from 2019 it seemed to struggle climbing stairs a bit.
  - echelon 5y ago
    But they'll sell at a higher volume and be able to reinvest in R&D. Boston Dynamics needed constant injection of capital.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Forgive me if I'm wrong but I though motors aren't the main cost, rather the rest of the actuator? Also Unitree is going to make so much money selling these as well as get so much mass producing experience they'll probably be able to figure out the algorithms. Methinks the code is easier to figure out than reliable and cheap hardware.
  - jcims 5y ago
    The motor usually makes up about a third, the motor controller another third and the planetary gears and enclosure the final third.

sdflhasjd 5y ago

Where does 70k even go?

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
The high cost components of a robot like this are: Actuators, motor drivers, batteries, compute, sensors, and mechanical components. I did not reference SPOTs specs but it must be full of low volume custom parts (expensive). They are honestly probably selling them at little to no profit as $70k is about how much a low volume custom research robot might cost in parts. But I could see them getting SPOT down to $20k in parts, but then you still need to do assembly which is going to be very hands on with technicians doing assembly and test engineers checking components. And one could imagine they'd like it if they could manage some profit. IDK it all adds up robots are super expensive.
ionwake 5y ago
1- Unitrees robot looks identical - though it looks like it lacks Lidar? 2- Is the Unitree robot so similar because of talent poaching or just a coincidence? 3-How could a person invest in a company like unitree? Thanks
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  The more expensive versions of the Go1 have Lidar. Robot dogs are going to look like dogs - a body with legs. According to the about page, the CEO has been developing quadruped robots since 2013 (his masters thesis). https://www.unitree.com/aboutus https://www.unitree.com/aboutus Looks like they've take venture capital money: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unitree-robotics https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unitree-robotics