The Next Big Thing in Technology - Home Robots

The ingredients are all there for the taking to produce The Next Big Thing in Technology: Home Robots. 

Update 1/11/2018: See this Robot that can get your beer at CES 2018. The missing piece is a personality like Siri or Alexa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hoy729YO9LI

After Google failed with Boston Dynamics, and Apple is missing out on the opportunity even when urged by its investors, Elon Musk seems to be the one to run with idea (CNN article: "After bringing electric cars to the masses and taking people to Mars, Elon Musk's next goal is to design a robot to do your chores").

Imagine having a Home Robot that can:

• Recognize and greet you and your family
• Respond to your questions, tell jokes
• Look up recipes and read them back step by step
• Maintain a shopping list when verbally directed to add an item AND automatically add items to the list by checking when they run low
• Create Calendar Entries when asked to do so
• Read and send text messages and emails
• Move around the house, hanging around the family gathering
• Laugh when everyone else is laughing (maybe that's too creepy)
• Pick up things and put them back where they belong
• Take your laundry to the laundry room (in version 2.0 actually wash and dry them)
• House alarm - monitor the house while away with a motion sensor, sound and video capture
• Play music with onboard speaker or through Bluetooth on external speakers
• Personality (think Max Headroom on an on-board 8" tablet)

The idea of having robots is not new of course.  The pictured Topo was was designed and sold in the 1980s by Androbot Inc.  

So what is different between the earlier attempts and now? Well, here is the list:

Batteries and Hardware - better then ever, my iRobot Rumba runs around the house vacuuming for almost two hours on one charge (also consider hover boards)

Sensors - again look at the Rumba, it doesn't roll off stairs and the new AWARE(tm) Robotic Intelligence System figures out positioning and room size

Tablets/Screens - 8" touchscreen can serve as a face for the robot as well as for data input/output for things like recipes, facebook

Internet / Artificial Intelligence - think Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri for a connection to the internet which opens up the world of services, data and programmability

Operating System - whether Android or iOS or even Windows can offer limitless opportunities - think new apps

So there you have it. Those are the main ingredients available for someone to cook up a robot. Too bad Tim Cook (pun intended) doesn't see the opportunity. The key in this approach is build quality and Apple is one of the few companies that would to it justice. 

Steve Jobs saw the ingredients for the iPod and later the iPhone which were MP3s, touch screen, cell service, batteries... he realized he needed a better operating system and create the last component: iOS. Steve also paid close attention to the quality of the product which would also be paramount when building a Home Robot.

In simple terms, one has to take Amazon's Alexa, place it on top of the iRobot Rumba for mobility, add a tablet for a screen, sensors, a camera and add an R2D2 (Star Wars) like case (body). The last component would be some software to make all those things work together and to give the Robot some personality. There you have it, version 1.0 of a proper Home Robot.

Would you buy such a robot?