Robots have begun making their way into our homes, albeit cautiously. Softbank’s Pepper was first created as an empathetic companion for the home, but now mainly exists as a greeter in select retail stores.
So why has the development and adoption of robots for the home been such a slow process?
“For a long time, the promise has been that we’ll soon have general purpose robots in the home that are capable of doing complex tasks such as cleaning, laundry and cooking. But for decades, we’ve only had toy robots, or something very specific – such as Roomba, the vacuum cleaner. So we’re a long way from having the dream become reality,” said Thuc Vu, co-founder of OhmniLabs, makers of a telepresence robot for families.