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Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

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Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#111

Post by jdlshore »

PopePompus wrote: post #101
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a robot is adept at washing dishes and folding laundry, it suggests our technology is good enough that they should have a decent shot at remaining upright indefinitely, or falling gracefully and righting themselves afterwards.

Perhaps the entire kitchen sink could be redesigned with robotic dish washing in mind. No bipedal Boston Dynamics style robot washing your dishes and taking out the trash - just two arms built into the sink with automated drains and soap dispensing to wash dishes, put them in a rack, and do nothing else. I'd pay quite a bit for that.

How is that different than a dishwasher? The problem is collecting the dishes and putting them away, not washing them. Unless you’re imagining something to scrub pots and pans?

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#112

Post by jdlshore »

kccqzy wrote: post #64
crabbone wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also profiteering and security issues. Thermostat that wants to connect to "cloud" and needs to know my street address, my name etc.? -- Not happening. Companies selling "smart" devices instantly overcomplicated relatively simple appliances making them beyond DIY repair level, and, on top of it, wanted to sell service of supporting these overly complicated devices. It's just very hard to see the benefit, when…

> it just doesn't save that much money, even if it works well You should see how wasteful typical American households are when they use a dumb thermometer. The best energy-saving feature is simply at-home vs away-from-home detection. I don't want my HVAC at home to run when I'm away at work or worse away at vacation, unless the temperature is really extreme. This easily saves me hundreds of dollars for a month-long v…

High end robot vacuums have been innovating (including Roomba), with self-emptying bins and ML-based obstacle avoidance for things like cords and pet waste. This requires a camera, so any high end robot vacuum is going to have one. For me, those features are worth it.

The other big area of innovation is combo-vacuum+mop, including automatic water replacement and cleaning, but those features don’t seem to be fully ready for prime time yet. Roomba is behind the curve on this one.

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#113

Post by tmpz22 »

hapticmonkey wrote: post #93
newhotelowner wrote: post #17

I want something that cleans my bathroom and toilet. I will buy it for my business and will pay 20-30k/year. Also, something to Clean my dishes (Load in the dishwasher, turn it on, and put it away). Doing my laundry - load, wash and fold. Mow the lawn.

Tech companies: best we can do is an AI that reads your kids bedtime stories. You know, the moments we actually cherish. The manual labor is all we'll humans have left to do.

Oops you left Storyteller.ai running on autoplay and its been reading Mein Kamp for two hours

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#115

Post by lunfardl »

sgt wrote: post #29
huytersd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated lawn mowing is relatively mature at this point and works well, assuming you have a relatively flat lawn. A one time purchase price of 20k would be acceptable. $20-30k per year is ridiculous. For that price you can hire a person to come and clean your toilet for 5 hours a day, every single day.

So... I have a gardener. He works two days a week doing all kinds of stuff. The mowing itself (and trimming) takes 5% of his time, or even less. Funny how people enjoy automating the part that you easily could do yourself without a massive time impact.

says the guy paying someone else to do it

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#116

Post by sidibe »

npunt wrote: post #48
paxys wrote: post #21

I know being late to the game and doing the tech "right" in terms of design and usability is kinda Apple's thing, but lately it seems like they have been only picking areas that weren't successful for a reason, like insurmountable technical difficulties or lack of customer interest, and no amount of Apple's design or marketing magic can fix that. See – self driving, AR/VR, smart speakers, folding phones, now home rob…

One thing about Apple is things can make sense for them to explore that don't make sense for others to. They have a big enough ecosystem, enough cash to do R&D on an idea for decades , and a culture of killing things that aren't good enough that make them an ideal place to determine whether ideas are a conceptual dead end versus just haven't been executed well enough (or tied to the right ecosystem to make them work)…

> They have a big enough ecosystem, enough cash to do R&D on an idea for decades

They can but do they? For all their flightiness on products, the company that actually does this is Google. They've poured money into very long term, questionable return projects at a rate Apple doesn't seem willing to do

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#117

Post by r00fus »

ENGNR wrote: post #79

For me the "transformative" aspect of personal robotics is... maintenance Why does every store have self opening doors, but no houses do? I think it's because paying ~$500/year to get it running again when it breaks feels like a waste to almost any home owner. The same with other random innovations, like a car stacker to push your car into the garage roof when not in use so you can use the garage (the hydraulics woul…

> Why does every store have self opening doors, but no houses do?

This is easy to answer: I don't want a door that opens by itself (except in my dreams) because it's potentially dangerous, might open when I don't want (and let my cat out) and it's likely an energy sieve.

The juice isn't worth the squeeze - even not counting maintenance.

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#118

Post by newhotelowner »

huytersd wrote: post #24
newhotelowner wrote: post #17

I want something that cleans my bathroom and toilet. I will buy it for my business and will pay 20-30k/year. Also, something to Clean my dishes (Load in the dishwasher, turn it on, and put it away). Doing my laundry - load, wash and fold. Mow the lawn.

Automated lawn mowing is relatively mature at this point and works well, assuming you have a relatively flat lawn. A one time purchase price of 20k would be acceptable. $20-30k per year is ridiculous. For that price you can hire a person to come and clean your toilet for 5 hours a day, every single day.

I own a hotel. 20k per year robot that cleans bathroom will save me 20k.

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#119

Post by newhotelowner »

huytersd wrote: post #35
sgt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... I have a gardener. He works two days a week doing all kinds of stuff. The mowing itself (and trimming) takes 5% of his time, or even less. Funny how people enjoy automating the part that you easily could do yourself without a massive time impact.

It depends. My backyard lawn is about 2 acres in size. It takes me 1.5 hours to manually mow it with a small 21 inch powered push mower. I just let the auto mower do its thing continuously and it charges itself. Costs almost nothing since I sharpen the blades about once a month myself. It’s also nice because the grass is always trimmed. You don’t have to go through the let it get tall and the landscaper mows it down…

What kind of auto mower?

Re: Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'

#120

Post by ssivark »

paxys wrote: post #21

I know being late to the game and doing the tech "right" in terms of design and usability is kinda Apple's thing, but lately it seems like they have been only picking areas that weren't successful for a reason, like insurmountable technical difficulties or lack of customer interest, and no amount of Apple's design or marketing magic can fix that. See – self driving, AR/VR, smart speakers, folding phones, now home rob…

A substantial fraction of households that can afford Apple devices likely owns several of them. So if Apple wants to multiply their revenue, they need to create products with wide appeal with margins (in raw numbers -- not just percentages) comparable to their current offerings i.e. margins of $1000+ per household. That might help understand the kind of products they are pursuing.

Apple is uniquely situated (cash surplus, deep tech + manufacturing expertise, consumer product + marketing expertise) to take on such multi-year product-oriented R&D. Even if one out of N (serious) attempts pays off, the scale of success will justify the amortized ROI.

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