Startup Shows Off Robots That Can Do Home Chores

Your. Robot is kind of humanoid.

Like a little, but not totally. How does it differ from other robotics?

Yeah, I think we just think about safety as a really high priority item and we define it as being like passively safe. And what it means is that you can put the robot into any configuration and you can cut power and the robot will still be stable. So this is why we built this whole

be stable. So this is why we built this whole mobile space as opposed to LAX. Why did you ultimately come to decide that this was the way in which you should think about robotics, maybe not in a humanoid manner, maybe just with real safety?

First, you've got a stellar background, your Google, DeepMind, Tesla, Autopilot, Google X. You're also, of course, just coming out

Google X. You're also, of course, just coming out of stealth with a cool 30 million to put to work.

Yeah, I think the the biggest way we think very differently is actually on how to train these robots. Not just the design, but how adapting is intelligence. So normally people train their robots

intelligence. So normally people train their robots through teleoperation, which essentially means that you kind of lock into the robot and control how it moves. But the way we learn is actually very, very different than we learn from humans directly.

That's essentially we designed this device, a glove that captures how humans do their chores, and we're able to transfer those data directly into the robots. And that's how the robot is able to

robots. And that's how the robot is able to learn from hundreds of humans simultaneously.

These robots don't come cheap. But interestingly, Tony, you're not looking to sell immediately. You're looking to beta test.

Now, how are you finding the right people to bring these robots into their home? Yeah.

home? Yeah.

So if you look at our website, we actually have a huge signup dock for people who are interested, and we already got more than a few thousand of these applications. So what we're going to work on next is

these applications. So what we're going to work on next is to like very carefully sift through all these applications and find people who are what we call like founding families will be there to give us feedback, will be there to kind of shape what a product will look like in the future.

What do you think the hardest element for these robots is?

The hardest elements. I think it will be how people will react to this like big robot in their homes. And again, this is the first time that anyone has put a mobile manipulator, like a robot with arms into real living homes. And this is something that we're

homes. And this is something that we're incredibly excited about, I think will be people will be pleasantly surprised by how useful it is. Why do you think so many tech companies do end up turning to humanoids, to turning to the physical form of a human rather than a more stable base as you have?

Yeah. I think if you're working out environments that with a lot of stairs or you're working environments with like, you know like hell's, I think having locks will be helpful in that case. And for us, in our first product, we

case. And for us, in our first product, we decided to go for a real base, just for the simplicity.

For lowering costs and to allows us to move faster.

Talk to us about costs. You have managed to raise seed funding from Sarah. Go over conviction.

from Sarah. Go over conviction.

You've now got money coming in that by benchmark.

What is the key cost for you? Is it the talent?

Is it the hardware? What is it?

Yeah. So our hardware is actually quite differentiated from a lot of human rights.

Even at quantity zero, when we prototype it these days, it costs around 25 K to make and our quantity around like 5000. We're able to get a cost to below ten K So I think we'll be ending up selling it around to 5 to 10 K in the final price.

And this is we're thinking about robots, not like another car like purchase, but more like a fancy smartphone or a laptop.

How does American ingenuity when it comes to robotics stack up to that of Asia and China, and how you seeing your own supply chain develop?

Yeah, this is a great question. I think American has incredible mechanical engineers, software engineers, but we are lacking in terms of some of the supply chain infrastructures.

So I think we're at the point that we need to leverage some of the growing supply chains of humanoids in in China. And we actually share a lot of components with them so that we can have the economies of scale before us shipping like millions of robots.