Vgo Telepresence Robot
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 1 of June , 2010 at 2:41 am
In what may be (but probably isn’t) just a coincidence, a third telepresence robot has made a (pre) commercial appearance in as many weeks. This robot is called Vgo, and… Well, it does telepresence. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but you get on your computer on one end, connect to the robot, and then drive it around while looking through its cameras. Sensors keep you from running into stuff or falling down stairs, and it’ll run all day on one battery charge. The biggest news, at this point, is that the Vgo is only supposed to cost $5000. Plus a mandatory support contract of $1200 a year. So, $6000.
The Boston Globe has a nice piece on Vgo… There aren’t many more technical details, but I did find this interesting:
Two analysts I spoke with differed on the potential for robotic videoconferencing. Rob Enderle, a technology analyst at the Enderle Group who has written about the slow spread of traditional videoconferencing systems, said that “the closer we get to simulating being there, the better an alternative to travel it will become.’’
But Dan Kara, president of the publishing company Robotics Trends in Framingham, said, “I’m not quite sold on mobile telepresence. How is it that much better than having someone at the remote site carry around a netbook computer with a free copy of Skype on it?’’
The whole minion+laptop+Skype thing is exactly the point we made back when Anybots’ QA was introduced at CES for $30k. Obviously, a telepresence robot is much better than minion+laptop+Skype, but the question is, is it really that much better in terms of cost effectiveness? At the $6k price point, perhaps. Or maybe that’s not the question… Maybe the question should be, how much hardware is required to simulate being somewhere else to the extent that is necessary to make paying for a robotic telepresence solution a practical idea? I don’t have the answer, but hopefully the consumer market will, now that there are (or soon will be) three different telepresence robots available for people to purchase.
[ Vgo ] VIA [ Boston Globe ] VIA [ Texasalpha ]
Comments (7)
Category: Consumer
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Comment by The tribble
Made Tuesday, 8 of June , 2010 at 1:34 am
That’s waaay too rickety. It actually looks cumbersome and dangerous.
Comment by quantum_flux
Made Thursday, 7 of October , 2010 at 10:50 pm
Sweet.
Comment by Jeff
Made Thursday, 20 of January , 2011 at 6:30 am
Does this look any better? http://goo.gl/2iOi0
Comment by danwat1234
Made Sunday, 6 of February , 2011 at 2:13 pm
@Tribble, I doubt it’s rickity. The battery is @ the base. Dangerous? I don’t think it would cause anything more than maybe a bruise if somebody got hit by it.
This technology is awesome. One of the reasons why I’m going to school to be a computer engineer!
Comment by Robert Campbell
Made Monday, 7 of February , 2011 at 4:42 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/06/texas-student-lyndon-baty-vgo-robot_n_818884.html
Now, this is a good use of technology!
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Made Tuesday, 22 of November , 2011 at 11:48 pm
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Made Tuesday, 22 of November , 2011 at 11:48 pm
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