Are we Ready to Have our Own Personal Home Robot?

Perhaps you have heard about this already but we live in a day and age when personal home robots exist and, apparently, they can socialize with us. Are we ready to have one in our living room or kitchen?

How did we get here?

We had a vision of such robots, if we look at how many Sci-fi movies and comic books about them we released in the last century. After many years of research and work, we start to see some progress.

Unlike their more functional, yet still fictional, predecessors, most of them can’t walk, often they roll. Of course, they are also far from sharing our ability to communicate, our social skills or dexterity.

To make matters worse for robots, they don’t seem to be able to compete with the smart speakers developed by companies like Apple, Google or Amazon. That’s because this immobile objects are far cheaper to make and they are powered by AI as well.

This means the end of robots?

Far from it. There are many ambitious robot-builders that were able to release life-like products on the market, although the reviews are mixed. Some of the pioneers, like Kuri – a wheeled nanny that resembles a cartoon – and Jibo – a talking speaker – weren’t able to stay on the market for long.

So here comes Vector, a home robot that is more budget-friendly and who carries hopes in being a bigger hit. Others remain in the developmental phase, including a project designed by Amazon. People in the industry believe that maybe this year will be the start of the robot-age. We shouldn’t expect those Sci-fi robots, instead we would be best advised to wait for a very specific use of these robots.

In order for them to become a hit, they need to prove themselves helpful and useful for people of all ages.