Mobile Robots PatrolBot Brings You Beer for $30,000
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 22 of October , 2007 at 1:23 am
Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally excited to see service robots designed for the average home consumer who wants some coffee with their onion rings. But the robotic assistants from Mobile Robots seem to offer very little while costing very much. In fact, the disparity between cost and functionality of these “home help” robots makes me think I must be missing something. You can choose from three models: “Jeeves,” “BrewskiBot,” and “Agent 007.” (Sigh.) All of the models feature the same bulky PatrolBot base, with electric drive motors, 12 sonar sensors, 10 bumper panels, and wireless control. It can handle payloads of up to 40kg, or 25kg on an 8:1 ramp. Jeeves “serves food or drink on a cheery tray” and costs $30,995. BrewskiBot “brings up to 2 six-packs in its mobile frig” and costs an extra $1000. What exactly do you get for that amount of money? Um, the bots are able to navigate your home (after you program in your floor plan by hand). They can avoid obstacles, and will say “excuse me” if their path is obstructed. They can either follow you around automatically, or execute scheduled trips. They also… Well… That’s actually it. The third model, Agent 007, costs $34,995 and includes a camera. It can wander around your house at random taking snapshots, and will let you know if you’ve left a door open. Home installation (which I guess would include mapping one floor of your house and plugging in the charging station) costs $5,000, and a 1 year/1000 mile warranty is included.
Why am I ridiculing these poor bots? Easy: they don’t DO anything that can possibly justify their price tag. The Agent 007 sentry robot that costs $35,000? Spyke costs 200 quid and does basically the same thing, arguably with more versatility. Same with WowWee’s RoboQuad. Even if they were advertised as development platforms (which, in these configurations, they aren’t), they’re still nineties robot technology with a nineties robot price tag.
[ Mobile Robots ] VIA [ Gearlog ]
Category: Consumer
- Add this post to
- Del.icio.us -
- Digg
No comments yet.