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Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

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Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#121

Post by imtringued »

blueblisters wrote: post #48
spyckie2 wrote: post #26

Things 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 clea…

Wouldn't you pay for a robot what you would pay for a car if it can help you do your regular housekeeping? A $15k car arguably provides less value if you mostly use it to ferry you from home to work and back.

Are you sure? Without that car lots of people would not have access to affordable housing.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#122

Post by blueblisters »

I 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.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#123

Post by macrolime »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78
ragebol wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Set the table - Gather & sort laundry, maybe even put in the washing machine - Gather dishes and maybe put them in the washer All chores easy for an able bodies human. But imagine having some disability or getting older. Getting back that autonomy in your life is definitely worth the money. Heck, if I have to pick between playing with my newborn son or doing the above and the likes, I'd trade my car for a robot tha…

If you have the money, why not just hire a help? Hire your neighbour, not some billionaire. There's social ways and means for a situation like that. But oh no, having people around and paying them a decent wage smells like socialism! Anti-individualism! Better to pay 20K for a half-assed robot that can only do a fraction of what needs to be done than to pay someone's wage, right?

Call your neighbor every time you need to put some dishes in the dishwasher or do some laundry?

You could have a maid but then you need to have them around all the time or you need a lot of space. Also many places in Europe it's essentially illegal to have a maid.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#124

Post by pgt »

Jack000 wrote: post #29

I'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")

I suspect the cost of the (presumably) Lithium-Ion battery is a significant chunk of change. Also, economies of scale in this form factor.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#125

Post by imtringued »

mleonhard wrote: post #57

In 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…

What if this created demand and funding for robotics companies? It's not like you are forced to sell your company to Google.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#126

Post by macrolime »

imtringued wrote: post #121
blueblisters wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you pay for a robot what you would pay for a car if it can help you do your regular housekeeping? A $15k car arguably provides less value if you mostly use it to ferry you from home to work and back.

Are you sure? Without that car lots of people would not have access to affordable housing.

There's still probably several hundred million people in the developed world who has a car,but does not need it for affordable housing.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#127

Post by pgt »

Something 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/Parasi...

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#128

Post by staz »

snovv_crash wrote: post #35
verroq wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $1.8k it would be amazing, at $18k it's a big stretch. I would buy it at $1.8k.

$1.8k buys you a mid-range bicycle. $2.5k buys you a high end laptop. Both of those are made in millions. This is roughly a combo of the two. So I'd guess that with sufficient volume this could get down to the $5k mark.

and a iRobot Create 2 is $0.2k

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#130

Post by imtringued »

Jack000 wrote: post #29

I'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")

I 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.
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