What CES 2024 tells us about home robots

some technology demos Comparable to robotics. Even as the field becomes more commonplace in a wide range of industrial workplaces, the impressive things mechatronics can do never cease to amaze. For many, robots are the future, and for large electronics companies, it’s a quick and easy way to let shareholders and customers know your company is still innovating.

It almost doesn’t matter whether these robots actually produce a marketable product. As long as other real products hit the market in the coming months, those futuristic demos will likely fade away. Remember the robot chef Samsung “unveiled” at CES 2020? About a month later, COVID-19 swept the world, so probably not.

But as far as we know, it did what it needed to do and then disappeared. At least Ballie’s “return” shows that Samsung has not lost interest in home robots. The spherical home patrol robot that now contains a projector is at least a more realistic vision of home robots in the near future. While I certainly wouldn’t bet on this product ever being released in Korea, South Korea, or anywhere, the Ballie is an entirely achievable goal.

Whether this is a good goal is another question entirely. I firmly believe that home robots are more viable than Roomba. So why, more than 20 years later, do we have little to show for it other than a bunch of robot vacuum cleaners? It’s one of those simple questions, but the answer is deceptively complicated. Functionality is a big piece. Most of the robots in this world are single-purpose. They are designed to do one specific thing well over and over until they can no longer do it.

After years of collective efforts, iRobot launched its first Roomba at the end of 2002 and finally achieved success. It was a very good idea and no one has surpassed it since then. Instead, countless companies have poured tens of millions of dollars into R&D to build better robot vacuums, to be conservative. Yes, today’s Roombas are a huge improvement over their ancestors. They’re smarter, have a better sense of space, know how to mop, and best of all, they don’t track animal feces on the carpet.

Security has long been considered the second killer app for the home. On the surface, the idea makes sense. Why settle for a ring cam when you can have a ring cam on the wheel? (Of course there are many good reasons for this, but that’s beside the point.) This is the main selling point behind Amazon Astro. The robot failed to achieve exciting success, largely due to its limited functionality and high price. Ballie will almost certainly suffer from this combination if it does come to market.

Matic’s vacuum uses a series of cameras to map a space and understand where it is in it. Image Source: Matic

Unfortunately, I was only able to attend two sessions at CES this year due to illness. However, there is one that happens to be very relevant to this particular conversation. For most intents and purposes, the Matic is another robot vacuum looking to make a name for itself in a very crowded space. The reason we covered the company’s November launch and the reason I agreed to meet with them this week is because of the combination of their unique approach to the category, in addition to the pedigree of their founders and financial backing from a knowledgeable source.

What really struck me during our conversation was that the company has effectively built a home robot platform that seems to be pretty good at vacuuming and mopping. I’ve always thought of it as being a bit like Nvidia’s Nova Carter mobile reference robot. As you clean your house, you’ll get better and better at navigating with your onboard vision system. If Matic or someone else masters the home equivalent of level 5 autonomy, you’ve got yourself a good foundation for additional functionality.

But what exactly is the magic bullet? Smart money spent on yet another chore that people hate doing, but the current factory still has too many limitations. Affordable, rugged mobile grippers are one of those surprisingly complex problems that many people have been working on for a long time. But as with the world of autonomous mobile warehouse robots, it’s easy to imagine how attaching a gripper to a robot would open up a new world of capabilities.

You might want your robot to be able to reach high places and traverse stairs. You can start with drone basics – which solves the mobility problem nicely – but if you don’t want something the size of a Honda Civic floating around your house, the payload and functionality are still very limited.

So naturally, we end up going back to what we do a lot these days. Attach the arms first, then the legs. Suddenly, you see something that looks more like yourself. This is a big reason why many roboticists can’t give up on humanoid robots. More than factories and warehouses, our homes are built for ourselves, so it follows that we will build something that looks like us to navigate these spaces.

Of course, no one is ready to seriously discuss humanoid robots at home just yet. Of course, there are a lot of non-serious people out there, but no one expects a commercial, general-purpose humanoid home robot to appear this year. Again, there are several reasons. The first and most obvious is the price. In the short term, business still makes more sense. Companies have deep pockets and will spend a lot of money if they believe it will ultimately save them. The need for industrial automation has also been proven time and time again.

Warehouses are also generally easier to navigate than homes. Ultimately, their structure is significantly more structured and unified. Furthermore, each of these robots will enter the labor market to perform a single job.They will do it again and again until it is perfect perhaps Learn another job. However, in most cases, in most factories and warehouses, there is a large amount of repetitive around-the-clock work that keeps these systems busy for long periods of time. After Roomba, consumers will demand home robots with more features.

Image Source: intuitive robot

The other big question mark in all of this is generating artificial intelligence. It’s become so popular at CES that it’s almost lost all meaning, and I’m sometimes annoyed that I’m joining that chorus. But generative AI will have a profound impact on robotics, full stop. There are many different venues, but at least two – learning and natural language – will ultimately lead to universal systems. The bad news, however, is that optimistic projections suggest the roadmap will take at least five years.

This year is a big year for robotics at CES. At the same time, it’s frustrating that we don’t feel any closer to ubiquitous home robots than we did this time last year. That’s not to say the near-term roadmap lacks interesting content. For something more realistic than a chicken in every pot and two Tesla robots in every garage, we should check out the Times Tech space. AARP’s accelerator (along with Samsung other The conferences I was able to attend this year) are doing a great job highlighting this category.

Japan always comes up in every discussion about this category because the country has always been ahead of the rest of the world due to its aging population. Robots are a big part of this. So far, they appear to be less popular within the broader era tech category, but there’s plenty of room to explore. Most of these devices are designed to provide older adults with ways to continue living independently. It’s easy to see the role robots can and will play.

Over the past few years, we have highlighted assist stroller systems for Labradors. This year, we see the return of the desktop ElliQ robot assistant. If I were looking for a way to get robots into homes right now, this would be my target group. Not to be too crude on this topic, baby boomers currently control 70% of the nation’s disposable income. Not a bad place to start if you ask me.