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▲ pwython 2 hours ago

For house keeping tasks the robotics companies love showing off... it honestly doesn't matter if it takes a robot longer than a human to clean your house. As long as it gets done before you get home from work, no big deal.

▲qurren 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm bearish that they'll be economically viable in the house for a very long time.

For businesses the bar for adoption is very low: If the thing can work repetitive jobs for 24 hours a day and replace 3 shifts, the purchase bar is nominally anything less than 3 x human salary if your budgeting horizon is 1 year. That's a high number, and probably fairly easy to achieve.

For homes, it's a very different bar. You'd have a hard time convincing most American families to purchase anything with a >$1000 price tag. Currently that's pretty much impossible for a humanoid.

▲si1entstill an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not sure.

I think house cleaning/chores require at least a "part-time" job's work of work for the average household (especially with children). We may be atypical, but my partner and I don't want to hire out a cleaning service and deal with the whole human component. But, I think we'd gladly pay 15k+ if it allowed us to take on the additional gainful workload. Even at a 20k price tag, I suspect we would likely have made up the difference in under a year.

▲qurren an hour ago | parent [-]

If you can even afford 20K you're in the top 10% of the US population. It's not a very big market, and even selling to that market is hard. Probably only 10% of that 10% will actually buy, and all of a sudden you're selling to 1%.

Selling to businesses is much easier, 99% of businesses can afford 200K if it replaces 3 x 70K humans.

▲jfaat 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Your napkin math only shows that the market is identical. There's about 35m businesses operating in the US. So by selling to 10% of those you sell the exact same number of robots...

▲nsvd2 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Actually the high income households are becoming a greater and greater share of spending, referred to as the "K shaped" economy. For example, the top quintile of households accounts for about 40% of all consumer spending.

▲aantix 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Most people finance vehicles that cost much more than 20K.

I'd gladly pay or finance a robot that could have dishes clean, laundry folded, and carpets vacuumed by the time our family got home.

▲drusepth 6 minutes ago | parent [-]

I don't think a cleaning robot and a vehicle are in the same category, as vehicles are more a necessity (at the very least to get to and from your jobs, to buy groceries, etc) and a cleaning robot is squarely a luxury.

▲jameshart an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Robot lawnmowers are mostly over $1000 already and they only do one thing. Heck, a lot of lawnmowers are over $1000.

You can pay over $500 for an automatic cat litter box. Robot vacuums can be cheap but run to $600 or so. Household appliances is a robust sector where people have a proven track record of spending a lot of money.

▲garbageman an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Automatic litter box is a great example. We've had one for ~7 years and it's still going strong. High initial cost that pays back every day over the course of what will likely be a decade+ of usage. Absolutely worth every penny if you look to the horizon. I imagine the robot mowers and robot house maids will fall under the same type of payback but with even higher upfront costs - perhaps this will turn into yet another subscription scheme.

▲xnx an hour ago | parent [-]

> We've had one for ~7 years and it's still going strong

Interested. Which one?

▲jvidalv 29 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Also interested.

▲f6v 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, I heard all it does is smear shit all over itself. Any good brands?

▲codegeek 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is all about the ROI. A lawn cut from a professional can cost anywhere from $25-$100 on an average (per cut). So with a $1000 lawn mower, you will get the return back in 10-40 cuts at most. That is less than 1-2 seasons. Sure, there will be some maintenance cost over the years but if you look at a 5-10 year period, it is totally worth doing your own. Even with the $1000 price tag. Of course, you cannot count the labor time.

▲memonkey an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

For all of these things, then what's the point of having a humanoid robot then? The last thing is a folding laundry bot that I would happily also pay $1000 for.

▲mrexroad 30 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> folding laundry robot

This is my dream for a house chore robot. If I could dump hampers of clothes into a receptacle and get stacks of folded clothes out, I’d happily pay $1k. Household of 5; my kids each produce 3-4 sets of clothes a day (sleep, school, sports, after school). I run wash in AM so dryer finishes before 3pm (pg&e ToU) and then I’m focused on other things for rest of day. More often than not, I get to bed to find a near full hamper of clothes dumped where I sleep and then have to sort/fold/deliver. Bonus points if robot can sort different items to different stacks/bundles.

I don’t need AI/robotics to save me time from having to think, research, or code… I need AI/robotics to save me time so I can think, research, or code.

▲lowbloodsugar an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

My wife hates having other people in our house and we both hate cleaning. If it worked, we’d drop $5k no problem. It’ll be $5k and a $50/mo sub? Sold!

▲heaney-555 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>You'd have a hard time convincing most American families to purchase anything with a >$1000 price tag.

Like cars, they'll likely purchase them through finance deals, with a monthly payment. Or perhaps even rent/lease them.

▲lovasoa 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Of course we'll rent them! I don't even want to keep a robot in my flat all the time.

But that means speed does matter after all. The renting company will need to clean as many flats as possible with a single robot in a single day.

▲qurren 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cars are an absolute necessity in the US unless you live in one of the small handful of cities that have viable public transit. Different thing altogether.

Robots aren't a necessity, and for a price tag in the tens of thousands, most people will just mop their own floors and do their own laundry.

▲micromacrofoot 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

$45k cars are not neccessary though, and that's the average american car loan today

▲bigfishrunning 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

That's really more of a financial literacy problem though. People don't see $45k car, they see $600/mo payment. And car dealers very much sell on the payment and not on the actual price.

▲georgemcbay an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Robots aren't a necessity, and for a price tag in the tens of thousands, most people will just mop their own floors and do their own laundry.

And (regardless of the costs involved) if I were going to pay money to not do this stuff myself, I'd rather pay a human to do it because I know there are humans out there that could use the work and I value them much more than I value Google and other corporations making even more obscene amounts of money selling future e-waste.

▲mbil 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Leasing seems like it could make sense given rapid upgrades in the technology. Why spend $15k on a home robot that will be obsoleted in the next few years?

▲garbageman an hour ago | parent [-]

Leasing is out, but locked-in subscriptions are in!

▲kelvinjps10 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At that point why not have a human cleaning service it will probably be cheaper

▲luckydata an hour ago | parent [-]

it's not cheap at all and the privacy and logistical implications of letting a stranger inside your house is something not everyone wants to deal with. I would rather have a robot.

▲infinitezest 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Suggesting that a robot is the more privacy friendly option is an interesting take.

▲blacksmith_tb 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not to pull on the tinfoil hat, but I would assume most commercially available home cleaning robots will be covered with cameras, mics, and other sensors, and connected to their manufacturer's cloud... I don't pay for housecleaning, but I would vet humans quite differently.

▲stirfish 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't trust a robot with my privacy, but I know Linette isn't building a profile of my shopping habits and Wi-Fi traffic. She is also careful to not let my cats out.

▲meowkit 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Much easier to remotely brick a robot too I imagine

▲michaelmrose an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

People are financing small consumer goods with 3 digit price tags because they can't afford their mediocre already leveraged life. They borrow high 4 to low 5 figures for a car because they can't get to work to earn money so they don't have to join the bums sleeping on the cardboard. They will not be borrowing high 5 figures to low 6 figures for Rosie the Robot.

If Rosie was the only output she would never happen. Rosie might happen as a side benefit of replacing American workers but only for the rich people.

The vast majority which may be replaced would probably be better off burning down the factory rather than celebrate their upcoming domestic helper.

▲randomNumber7 an hour ago | parent [-]

If you have a robot doing household work you can spend more time at work /S

▲nearbuy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unitree's R1 humanoid robot is only about $6000, and it's still a nascent, smallish scale technology. They will come down.

If the future home robots are any good, it saves you from buying a dishwasher and robot vacuum. It can replace a maid/cleaning service and gardener/lawn-mowing service. For anyone paying for those services, it pays for itself.

$1000 isn't that high. Probably about a third of American households have an appliance over $2000, which is still a massive market.

▲monknomo an hour ago | parent [-]

I doubt it'd save you from purchasing a dishwasher - those things are very efficient and not very expensive. Perhaps it'd save you from loading and unloading a dishwasher

▲xnx an hour ago | parent [-]

Have 2 dishwashers, and you never need to load or unload (as an extra step).

▲codegeek 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You never know the future but imagine the people who were bearish on personal computers when it wasn't a thing yet but was being discussed. Imagine Email, Internet etc etc. Now they are commodities. I am sure one day AI Robots will be a commodity that we could buy for $1000. May be 10 years from now. But it is coming.

▲jaccola an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Another huge blocker (that is essentially just cost too) is maintenance. These things are like 1000x more complex than a car, need to work in a diverse range of environments, handle water, household chemicals, different humidities, kids, etc… maybe eventually robots will service robots but that seems very hard!

And talking of kids, these will have to be exceedingly safe, a 6ft machine falling on a child is probably a worry most households could do without.

▲jonplackett 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah if you can afford the probably 10x it will actually cost, you can also just afford a cleaner to come twice a week and be able to do a wider variety of tasks (anyone going to trust this with ironing?)

▲f6v 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Self-driving car brings a robot cleaner to your door step once a week.

▲luckydata an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

if you give me a robot that cleans the house and can do dishes and laundry I'll easily pay the cost of a compact car for that. I know a LOT of working families that would feel similarly.

▲tootie 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think domestic robots will make a lot of incremental progress and that few, if any, will be humanoid. We'll see a laundry folder and sock picker-upper and they'll be more like roombas or just big cubes. And tethered.

▲kibwen an hour ago | parent [-]

The more likely scenario is that the hucksters currently hyping the idea of humanoid robots will gradually move the goalposts so that, when we eventually get a big, soft, stationary cube with six inflatable robot arms they'll point to it and say "behold, a humanoid robot!" and declare their predictions vindicated.

▲neutronicus 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, a twice-monthly house-cleaning service is running you ballpark 5k/year and people treat that shit as non-negotiable. I tried to claw back that line item after our second baby was born (wife didn't want them in the house anyway when we had a newborn), and it was completely unsuccessful. She claimed misery and all our friends were on her side.

So the lifestyle stayed inflated.

▲soperj an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> ballpark 5k/year

How big is your house? When we had a cleaning lady it was $70 a go. Under $2000 for every second week.

▲infecto 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

$70 a go? That’s got to be the cash only person to person handshake agreement. That would never buy you laundry too.

I think I remember maybe around $100 including laundry almost 20 years ago and that was a cash type arrangement, weekly including laundry (multi hour visit).

▲neutronicus 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

2500 finished square feet in a MCOL east coast metro (Baltimore).

Wondering if you're closer to the southern border or something.

▲pertymcpert an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I have a 1300 sqft house, 3b2b. Costs me around $200 for a cleaning.

▲neutronicus 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

Similar here for 2500 finished sq ft.

▲qurren 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, but:

1. 80%+ of Americans can't afford house cleaning services. I'm a software engineer in silicon valley and even I clean my own house because I don't think I can afford it. My rents have gone up by more than 5K in the last year, my salary hasn't, so that's coming out of my house cleaning budget.

2. Even if you can afford 5K/year on it, the cleaning service is not an upfront commitment. You can bail anytime when you get laid off and clean your own house.

3. Consumers don't budget rationally. Businesses do.

▲salemh 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

▲Cthulhu_ 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, the dishwasher takes much longer to do the dishes than I do by hand, but that's cool. That said, the dishwasher is out of the way.

I don't think we'll get household robots anytime soon. Hell, the only ones that can afford them will be the same that would hire human household help.

▲FartyMcFarter 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Hell, the only ones that can afford them will be the same that would hire human household help.

But maybe they'd rather deal with a robot than a human?

▲RandomLensman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Honestly: why?

▲FartyMcFarter 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't want a person I don't know very well in my space.

That aside: if I'm lucky enough to find a person who's good and reliable, they might move away, switch jobs etc.

It has all the headaches that come with hiring and managing someone, because, well, it is exactly that... If I don't want to be a manager at work (been there done that, happy to let others do it and get the raise that comes along with it), I sure as heck don't want to do it at home.

▲nozzlegear 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Usually you hire a cleaning company who sends a person they've hired and vetted to clean, you don't have to deal with all of that stuff.

▲FartyMcFarter 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Then I have to deal with whichever random person they decide to send. I can't be the only one who finds this annoying (even if I'm not in the majority).

▲RandomLensman 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You'd need to manage the robot, too, I would think. In my experience, I rather manage people than machines.

▲margalabargala an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, but others have the opposite preference. Machines tend to be more predictable.

▲RandomLensman an hour ago | parent [-]

I think machines are just unpredictable in different ways (for example, changes from software updates).

▲micromacrofoot 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I prefer machines

▲kibwen 44 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> I don't want a person I don't know very well in my space.

In the humanoid robot scenario, you'll get a surveillance device with a built-in microphone and camera beaming every intimate detail of your space to the highest bidder. Instead of getting one person you don't know very well in your space, you'll get thousands.

▲iinnPP 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The list of plausible answers is long enough as to question why you felt the need to include the word honestly, irony? One example: social anxiety.

▲RandomLensman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Not irony: why manage machines with all the issues that go with that instead of people?

▲Marha01 an hour ago | parent [-]

Tell me you are not an introvert without telling me...

I don't want a person I barely know regularly going all over my apartment. What if they discover... nevermind.

A robot, on the other hand? Hell yeah!

▲luckydata an hour ago | parent [-]

you don't need to be an introvert to find that line of reasoning short sighted. I'm plenty extroverted and I still don't want to deal with people coming to my house to clean it. It's very invasive and they rarely do a good job. A robot that I can "train" to do exactly what I need and constantly works in the background would be a HUGE value add to my lifestyle.

▲RandomLensman 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

The difference might be that I don't believe in these "machine gods of cleaning" being the thing to arrive (looking at current consumer goods) and then the boundary for what to choose shifts a lot if one is willing to deal with humans. The latter also doesn't need to be so foreign, e.g., could be someone already working for a friend.

▲seasox 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Robots don‘t steal and don‘t want a raise.

▲RandomLensman 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If there is a subscription in there somewhere, prices could change.

▲pertymcpert an hour ago | parent [-]

It's ok, we get it you don't want one. I would happily pay $20k-$30k for one if it worked well. I know a lot of people who would.

▲RandomLensman an hour ago | parent [-]

I might even get one as I like trying new tech if and when, but I have no issue with hiring humans either and humans so far "fail" very differently from machines (as in a lot of software). I find the latter far less predictable and controllable.

▲fidotron an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Humans have emotions. Best avoided.

▲RajT88 21 minutes ago | parent [-]

It's been said that people who do not have a high EQ gravitate towards tech, because machines are easier to understand than people.

▲terio 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Less liability?

▲CamperBob2 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

With a robot housemaid, I wouldn't have to get dressed. :-P

More seriously:

- I wouldn't feel obligated to 'pre-clean' anything. Who wants to come across as a thoughtless/careless slob whose personal habits amount to borderline-abusive demands on the cleaning staff? Not me... and where does that line get drawn, anyway?

- I wouldn't worry about stuff being picked up and misplaced

- I have never had problems with maids stealing stuff, but I know others have

- Cleaning can be initiated or postponed as needed, with no dependencies on someone else's schedule

▲RandomLensman 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The last point I can get behind as it is a clear advantage, the other ones might need some more superhuman abilities that I'd not accept as given until demonstrated in extenso.

▲kibwen 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> With a robot housemaid, I wouldn't have to get dressed. :-P

Well, as long as you don't mind the workers in the robot company's telemetrics department whacking it to your robot's video feed.

▲CamperBob2 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

They can jerk themselves silly, IDGAF. When the 'Black Mirror' screenwriters get involved, though, I'll require some back-end participation of the financial kind.

▲sagarm an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The dishwasher is out of the way because you made space for it out of the way. We'll probably adapt our spaces for robots too eventually.

For example, you could store far more things out of easy human reach.

▲millerm 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly. People buy those automated circular floor vacuums. Anyone can get it done with a regular broom/vacuum in a small fraction of the time it takes for those things. Just like I drive an electric car. It charges while I sleep. It doesn't matter if an ICE can fuel in a few minutes.

▲moffkalast an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"That's fair, you are absolutely right I should not have unscrewed the water hose and put it away before turning on the valve to water the plants, even though you specified that order, I should've used some common sense."

There is going to be so much pain from VLA malicious compliance. If the current gen of LLMs are anything to go by I can already see it being an hilariously massive problem. People are careless.

▲claaams an hour ago | parent [-]

This was my thought too. An unsupervised robot can cause 10s of thousands in damage by accidentally ripping a water line and flooding your house or just breaking all of your dishes. There’s no level to how dumb and awful LLMs can hallucinate

▲doctorpangloss 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> it honestly doesn't matter if it takes a robot longer than a human to clean your house

it depends. in order for my slow ass Roomba to clean my floors, I have to move a bunch of things out of the way and not use the room.

on the flip side, i think this "the robot cannot automate the whole task" thing is reductive too. suffice it to say, EVERYTHING matters, there honestly nothing that "honestly doesn't matter."