4 ms·

I don't understand why this even has to charge at all. It makes sense for multiple reasons to give it 3 batteries that say have 1/3 of the capacity, and make at

I don't understand why this even has to charge at all. It makes sense for multiple reasons to give it 3 batteries that say have 1/3 of the capacity, and make at least 1, if not 2 or 3 capable of charging independently on a station. Then the robot would just go to its station and swap its own batteries. Why even have wireless charging at all? Or even a cable? Or even have it "charge"? Battery swapping seems to make way more sense here. Am I missing something? Bonus points if the robot has data on the degradation and can order its own replacement batteries, take them out of the box, and ship the old ones to a recycling facility... More bonus points if the charging station is actually outside under a 1KW solar array pergola thing, that way you don't even have to pay for the electricity either. Don't worry, the robot will lock the door when it goes out to grab its batteries. It'll also bring in the whole setup if the weather isn't great.

4b11b4 1y ago
Swapping requires a lot more moving parts and an additional enclosure to house the battery, and the batteries need to be much more rugged, and now you need two of them. But a cable is a fair question.. you'd think it could plug itself in... Maybe that's a hint at the robots actual capabilities at this point... or, they didn't want to bet on the unpredictability of environments: what if there's something in the way of the cable, though something could also be in the way of the inductive charger
- pants2 1y ago
  I believe Elon has said before re:Tesla factory that plugging in cords is one of the hardest things to automate.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    I'd appreciate a link. But "we don't trust our robot to be able to locate a power outlet and plug its own charging cord in there" sure is a low confidence play. There are practical advantages to being able to charge wirelessly, sure. But if they're doing that because of AI limitations? Bad sign.
    - tomashubelbauer 1y ago
      Tesla showed a prototype of a "snake"/"tentacle" charger that would find its own way to the Tesla's charging port a long time ago. Gotta be 5+ years by now. To my knowledge it has never become a real product or certainly not mainstream among Tesla owners. I believe this gives some credence to Tesla struggling to build robots that can plug a cord in, even in cases where the robot is the cable.
  - 4b11b4 1y ago
    Yeah, immediately after I wrote that I thought now you need a rugged socket, and to mount the cable somewhere on a wall.. and where to even place it on the body that it's easy for it to plug in.. the belly button? There is empty space in the feet anyway for a coil and a wire..
    - xp84 1y ago
      Forget sockets. My $15 fitness band uses a magnetically-assisted pogo-pin type thing. Works great. Just blow that up to 5x to get nice fat conductors. All you need to do is get it close and it plugs itself in. Knock it off perpendicularly to disconnect.
  - adrianmonk 1y ago
    My Roomba could do it in 2007. Then, in 2015, Tesla tried and gave up.
  - numpad0 1y ago
    They're building cars, so it's more like ATX 24pin style cables, but this is generally true. Cables, wires, ropes type of objects are like cardboard thin robots with hundred joints in series and under someone else's control, so it's hard for robots to deal with. If you think about it, people hate cables too. We easily get tangled in headphone cables when they're wired, and we fail to coil or untangle Ethernet cables properly all the time. EV charger style of short, thick cables should not be THAT hard, though. The more likely problem here is that they just can't handle the task of securing and inserting the head of the cable against resistance.
  - voidUpdate 1y ago
    Surely if the cable design was under your control, you could make it a lot easier for an automated system to plug in. Have it be sort of like a TRS jack, but cone-shaped. Then you don't have to get it perfectly aligned, it will align itself when inserted. Put a magnet in the tip to hold it in place, or some sort of electrically actuated lock that the robot can unlock when it wants to unplug the cable
AaronAPU 1y ago
It’s too bad there isn’t some kind of liquid battery which you could just quickly top off at refueling stations with virtually zero downtime. Yes, like gasoline. But still batteries. Maybe some kind of bearing sized batteries which can be poured like a fluid?
- dafelst 1y ago
  You are describing a fuel cell battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell Well established and even commercialized (Toyota sells fuel cell cars today IIRC), just not as cost effective in cars from a full infrastructure perspective (fueling specifically).
  - coderenegade 1y ago
    I think they might mean something closer to a flow battery, where, in principle, you should just be able to replace the electrolytes in a discharged state with new electrolytes in a charged state. Current flow batteries have very low energy density, though. I've always been partial to fuel cells, and in some ways they're ahead of the curve relative to standard batteries. For instance, solid electrolytes have been a thing for a while in fuel cells, and in both flavors of exchange. The challenge has always been overcoming sluggish kinetics with either better catalysts, or heat. It makes me wonder if there's a useful solid state battery that runs hotter than typical batteries, that would be useful for hybrid automotive applications.
  - AaronAPU 1y ago
    I wasn’t describing that, I was describing individual batteries which are small enough to be effectively liquid in aggregate.
dvrj101 1y ago
> can order its own replacement batteries, yeah companies would love to exploit this kind of subscription and definitely agree on battery swapping capabilities, it's more efficient . > Bonus points if the robot has data on the degradation BMS that can tell battery health is common so this should be there.
proee 1y ago
It depends on the battery life. If the robot lasts all day, then charging at night via standing on a charging pad makes a lot of sense. Creating a removable battery pack adds extra weight and gives the designers less freedom to place the battery pack exactly where it needs to be in the robot frame, or distribute the cells across the frame in strategic locations. Also, the charge rate matters. If robot can charge to 80% in say 30 minutes, then it can take small charging breaks during the day between critical tasks. Also, if the feet have inductive chargers, it's possible to place the robot on a large charging mat that allows it to run indefinitely, like in a factory environment. If your robot takes 30 minutes to fold the laundry or do dishes, why not place a charging mat at these locations so it can work and charge at the same time. In the future, new homes might include charging coils embedded in the floor every 12 inches so that your robots can work all day.
- elAhmo 1y ago
  Almost all of those points are applicable for the battery pack as well. There should be virtually no weight difference, other than the design limitation which is a valid concern.
  - proee 1y ago
    I suppose an external battery pack adds the bonus of doing a hard shutdown, in the case it decides to go rogue. Though getting to the battery pack might be hard if it resists you.
- poisonborz 1y ago
  Yeah so in 2-4 years you can throw out your whole expensive robot because battery wears out? I hate this argument that just to be a bit thinner, the whole device has to be be made throwaway.
  - jayd16 1y ago
    Talking about the thinness of a humanoid, maid robot is pretty hilarious.
the_gipsy 1y ago
The most likely reason is that even doing a pre-programmed battery swap with consistent battery and slots is way beyond the capabilities. It also can't even plug itself in to charge. Yet, it's being sold as capable of doing and folding your laundry. I would sell th stock to the next idiot the moment they announced this.
humanfromearth 1y ago
The Walker S2 seems to handle it in the demo: https://www.ubtrobot.com/en/humanoid/products/WalkerS2 https://www.ubtrobot.com/en/humanoid/products/WalkerS2
ryukoposting 1y ago
What happens if it can't get to the charger in time to do the swap? Same problem roombas have where you have to fish them out from under your couch, except now the damn thing is 5 feet tall and weighs 300 pounds.

4b11b4 1y ago

Swapping requires a lot more moving parts and an additional enclosure to house the battery, and the batteries need to be much more rugged, and now you need two of them. But a cable is a fair question.. you'd think it could plug itself in... Maybe that's a hint at the robots actual capabilities at this point... or, they didn't want to bet on the unpredictability of environments: what if there's something in the way of the cable, though something could also be in the way of the inductive charger

pants2 1y ago
I believe Elon has said before re:Tesla factory that plugging in cords is one of the hardest things to automate.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  I'd appreciate a link. But "we don't trust our robot to be able to locate a power outlet and plug its own charging cord in there" sure is a low confidence play. There are practical advantages to being able to charge wirelessly, sure. But if they're doing that because of AI limitations? Bad sign.
  - tomashubelbauer 1y ago
    Tesla showed a prototype of a "snake"/"tentacle" charger that would find its own way to the Tesla's charging port a long time ago. Gotta be 5+ years by now. To my knowledge it has never become a real product or certainly not mainstream among Tesla owners. I believe this gives some credence to Tesla struggling to build robots that can plug a cord in, even in cases where the robot is the cable.
- 4b11b4 1y ago
  Yeah, immediately after I wrote that I thought now you need a rugged socket, and to mount the cable somewhere on a wall.. and where to even place it on the body that it's easy for it to plug in.. the belly button? There is empty space in the feet anyway for a coil and a wire..
  - xp84 1y ago
    Forget sockets. My $15 fitness band uses a magnetically-assisted pogo-pin type thing. Works great. Just blow that up to 5x to get nice fat conductors. All you need to do is get it close and it plugs itself in. Knock it off perpendicularly to disconnect.
- adrianmonk 1y ago
  My Roomba could do it in 2007. Then, in 2015, Tesla tried and gave up.
- numpad0 1y ago
  They're building cars, so it's more like ATX 24pin style cables, but this is generally true. Cables, wires, ropes type of objects are like cardboard thin robots with hundred joints in series and under someone else's control, so it's hard for robots to deal with. If you think about it, people hate cables too. We easily get tangled in headphone cables when they're wired, and we fail to coil or untangle Ethernet cables properly all the time. EV charger style of short, thick cables should not be THAT hard, though. The more likely problem here is that they just can't handle the task of securing and inserting the head of the cable against resistance.
- voidUpdate 1y ago
  Surely if the cable design was under your control, you could make it a lot easier for an automated system to plug in. Have it be sort of like a TRS jack, but cone-shaped. Then you don't have to get it perfectly aligned, it will align itself when inserted. Put a magnet in the tip to hold it in place, or some sort of electrically actuated lock that the robot can unlock when it wants to unplug the cable

AaronAPU 1y ago

It’s too bad there isn’t some kind of liquid battery which you could just quickly top off at refueling stations with virtually zero downtime. Yes, like gasoline. But still batteries. Maybe some kind of bearing sized batteries which can be poured like a fluid?

dafelst 1y ago
You are describing a fuel cell battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell Well established and even commercialized (Toyota sells fuel cell cars today IIRC), just not as cost effective in cars from a full infrastructure perspective (fueling specifically).
- coderenegade 1y ago
  I think they might mean something closer to a flow battery, where, in principle, you should just be able to replace the electrolytes in a discharged state with new electrolytes in a charged state. Current flow batteries have very low energy density, though. I've always been partial to fuel cells, and in some ways they're ahead of the curve relative to standard batteries. For instance, solid electrolytes have been a thing for a while in fuel cells, and in both flavors of exchange. The challenge has always been overcoming sluggish kinetics with either better catalysts, or heat. It makes me wonder if there's a useful solid state battery that runs hotter than typical batteries, that would be useful for hybrid automotive applications.
- AaronAPU 1y ago
  I wasn’t describing that, I was describing individual batteries which are small enough to be effectively liquid in aggregate.

dvrj101 1y ago

> can order its own replacement batteries, yeah companies would love to exploit this kind of subscription and definitely agree on battery swapping capabilities, it's more efficient . > Bonus points if the robot has data on the degradation BMS that can tell battery health is common so this should be there.

proee 1y ago

It depends on the battery life. If the robot lasts all day, then charging at night via standing on a charging pad makes a lot of sense. Creating a removable battery pack adds extra weight and gives the designers less freedom to place the battery pack exactly where it needs to be in the robot frame, or distribute the cells across the frame in strategic locations. Also, the charge rate matters. If robot can charge to 80% in say 30 minutes, then it can take small charging breaks during the day between critical tasks. Also, if the feet have inductive chargers, it's possible to place the robot on a large charging mat that allows it to run indefinitely, like in a factory environment. If your robot takes 30 minutes to fold the laundry or do dishes, why not place a charging mat at these locations so it can work and charge at the same time. In the future, new homes might include charging coils embedded in the floor every 12 inches so that your robots can work all day.

elAhmo 1y ago
Almost all of those points are applicable for the battery pack as well. There should be virtually no weight difference, other than the design limitation which is a valid concern.
- proee 1y ago
  I suppose an external battery pack adds the bonus of doing a hard shutdown, in the case it decides to go rogue. Though getting to the battery pack might be hard if it resists you.
poisonborz 1y ago
Yeah so in 2-4 years you can throw out your whole expensive robot because battery wears out? I hate this argument that just to be a bit thinner, the whole device has to be be made throwaway.
- jayd16 1y ago
  Talking about the thinness of a humanoid, maid robot is pretty hilarious.

the_gipsy 1y ago

The most likely reason is that even doing a pre-programmed battery swap with consistent battery and slots is way beyond the capabilities. It also can't even plug itself in to charge. Yet, it's being sold as capable of doing and folding your laundry. I would sell th stock to the next idiot the moment they announced this.

humanfromearth 1y ago

The Walker S2 seems to handle it in the demo: https://www.ubtrobot.com/en/humanoid/products/WalkerS2 https://www.ubtrobot.com/en/humanoid/products/WalkerS2

ryukoposting 1y ago

What happens if it can't get to the charger in time to do the swap? Same problem roombas have where you have to fish them out from under your couch, except now the damn thing is 5 feet tall and weighs 300 pounds.