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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

#151

Post by aptwebapps »

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…

Another possible angle is integrations, i.e. robot-friendly appliances. Maybe the washing machine has a powered door and an API that the robot (or some other software) uses to control it. No need to push buttons. Obviously, this won't cover all scenarios, but as someone upthread said, to be useful it doesn't have to do everything.

The bigger issue, IMO, is avoiding distasters like Roombas trying to vacuum dog poop.

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

#152

Post by Someone »

russellbeattie wrote: post #76

"As of right now, Stretch is very much a research platform." That was buried way too low in the article for most HN commenters to bother getting to. Maybe this fact will help refocus the conversation from what this thing can't do to what it might be able to with some more work. Personally, I think it looks innovative. Adding a relatively inexpensive telescoping arm and some LiDAR to a Roomba could be another evolutio…

That’s the journalist’s fault. The manufacturer’s site is clear about it. https://hello-robot.com/product:

    Stretch™ Research Edition
    A new kind of robot.
    […]
    A Robot for Researchers by Researchers
I couldn’t find specs on typical battery life (would likely vary a lot, but still, any indicator would help) but it has an 18Ah battery (ballpark “3 laptops”), an Intel i5-8259U, 16GB of RAM and a 480GB SSD.

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

#153

Post by Xelbair »

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.

Depends where you live.

Over here, in Eastern Europe i have no need for a car(i sold it this year, after 10 years).

Public transport is really decent if you use it outside of rush hours, most stores are in walking distance(not only form my location but all over the city). And there is a great network of cycle lanes so you can easily cycle to work.

Plus our cities are usually wide, but not tall, which means more places for developers to build houses.

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

#155

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

biolurker1 wrote: post #154

I wonder why ex-faang company needs to be mentioned as a description of the founder.

Why not?

Most normal people would take that as a sign that the founder has already had a sucessful career in tech, because "FAANG" don't hire mediocre workers. The journalists knowing this trend, use this information to communicate this to people, speaking in their language. (Also this language makes some sense as well.) I don't see a problem.

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

#156

Post by chosenbreed37 »

aptwebapps wrote: post #151
espadrine wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Another possible angle is integrations, i.e. robot-friendly appliances. Maybe the washing machine has a powered door and an API that the robot (or some other software) uses to control it. No need to push buttons. Obviously, this won't cover all scenarios, but as someone upthread said, to be useful it doesn't have to do everything. The bigger issue, IMO, is avoiding distasters like Roombas trying to vacuum dog poop.

This sounds like a good idea. As you said it doesn't have to cover all scenarios.

I'm happy with our Roomba. We don't have any dogs but is it really that bad!? :-)

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

#158

Post by deepaksurti »

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…

>> Personally, though, I would bet on dedicated, single-purpose robots, working together through wireless communication.

Robonix Philosophy at play here, inspired from Unix philosophy [1]

- Make each robot do one thing well

- Expect the output of every robot to become the input to another

- Design and build robots to be tried early, ideally within weeks

- Use robots in preference to unskilled help to lighten a chore task

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Origin

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

#159

Post by aptwebapps »

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #156
aptwebapps wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another possible angle is integrations, i.e. robot-friendly appliances. Maybe the washing machine has a powered door and an API that the robot (or some other software) uses to control it. No need to push buttons. Obviously, this won't cover all scenarios, but as someone upthread said, to be useful it doesn't have to do everything. The bigger issue, IMO, is avoiding distasters like Roombas trying to vacuum dog poop.

This sounds like a good idea. As you said it doesn't have to cover all scenarios. I'm happy with our Roomba. We don't have any dogs but is it really that bad!? :-)

Oh, I don't have either, I was just using that as the canonical example.

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

#160

Post by 0xFFFFFFFA »

The main thing I see missing in these comments is the approach from the other end. There will be a tipping point where appliance makers design small features to make their products “robot friendly.” Like making openings larger, buttons larger and otherwise easier for cheaper robots to interact with. And it will create a feedback loop where robots get more popular because they can do more in a robot enabled home, and because they are more popular they get better, and because they are better they get more popular.

Let’s be honest, the roomba sucks, so It’s not really a counter argument.

Once there is a robot that is useful and also seen as a status symbol, that’s when the feedback loop will begin.

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