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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

#131

Post by espadrine »

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…

> I'd gladly pay 5k for a robot that can auto-organize my stuff around the house

The main equation for general-use household robots is: can it beat human fares?

A good weekly cleaner (4 hours) is about €22/h in Paris, or €4.5k/year.

Let’s say your robot lives 4 years, similar to your computer (which seems fair, since it is one, and an abused one at that). Since you amortize its price over 4 years, its initial cost must be below €18.3k ($21k) with human-quality-parity.

Personally, though, I would bet on dedicated, single-purpose robots, working together through wireless communication. Simpler to build, less costly, easier to replace. One small wheeled quadcopter for cleaning surfaces, one wheeled laundry box to carry it to the washing machine, one arm attached to the washing machine to put it in, etc.

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

#132

Post by macrolime »

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")

You can get cheap open source robots if you build it yourself.

They still can't do anything useful though.

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

#133

Post by fludlight »

espadrine wrote: post #131
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…

> I'd gladly pay 5k for a robot that can auto-organize my stuff around the house The main equation for general-use household robots is: can it beat human fares? A good weekly cleaner (4 hours) is about €22/h in Paris, or €4.5k/year. Let’s say your robot lives 4 years, similar to your computer (which seems fair, since it is one, and an abused one at that). Since you amortize its price over 4 years, its initial cost mu…

Robots won't accidentally infect you with disease, which is a big worry these days.

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

#134

Post by tomp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #80
nick0garvey wrote: post #30

The 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.

Why 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.

(1) no "foreigner in my home" cleanliness issue - especially pertinent during these dimes

(2) no "will the cleaner steal my golden watch / company's data" issue - you can always just replay the video and see exactly what the operator was doing / looking at

(3) ability to hire different people remotely - not just cleaners, but maybe repairmen, doctors, chefs, ...

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

#135

Post by zwischenzug »

That'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-...

[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Great-Convergence-Information-Technol...

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

#136

Post by Jack000 »

imtringued wrote: post #130
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.

There 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.

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

#137

Post by frozenport »

imtringued wrote: post #125
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.

If you're the CEO and your investors want a soft landing, there is little you can do.

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

#138

Post by frozenport »

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…

Google was also more against developing military applications which have been the historic routes for developing physically realizable but costly technologies (such as the computer).

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

#139

Post by macrolime »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #80
nick0garvey wrote: post #30

The 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.

Why 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.

Cheaper really depends on where you live and it often won't be faster unless they live in your house. Want to put some dishes in the dishwasher? First call someone to make an appointment, wait for them to arrive, explain what they need to do. It would end up being much slower and more effort than someone just remote controlling a robot.

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

#140

Post by wiradikusuma »

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…

In my country, the robot is called M.A.I.D, Mobile Autonomous Interactive Dude(tte), and it's like $5/hour.
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