What's the killer app that single-handedly gets you to fork over $30k for a reliable robot?
The "robot app store" idea alone has never worked for driving adoption... even smart phones originated with phone calls.
The "robot app store" idea alone has never worked for driving adoption... even smart phones originated with phone calls.
I'd pay a few extra thousand for a car that drives itself, or a closet washer/dryer that automatically washes, folds, and stores my clothes, or a fridge that can make basic meals, or a vacuum that cleans my house while I'm out.
Maybe a humanoid robot that does these things will exist one day, but I'd rather have a home that does all these things frictionlesly than share my space with a robot.
This would sell like hotcakes. Perhaps clothes would need some sort of an RFID tag built in to identify their specs (not sure the cost on that) but I would gladly pay a couple grand for a dryer that folds clothes.
A robotic closet that lets you wear your favorite shirt every day... fresh and clean.
Another thing I left off my initial list: surely agriculture must have tons of uses for robotics, with enough scale to justify higher prices.
Agriculture apparently already uses robots https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/22...
Sure, but they didn't become a must-have item in every pocket until the App Store came along. There was a big jump between selling 500,000 'smart phones'/yr and selling 500,000 per hour...
It would have to be absolutely required for your life at that price. The car is the closest to this given that price point and many people forgo that, so I can't think of anything that you would absolutely need a robot for.
There are a few good applications in healthcare that can (and do!) justify the expense of current robots. Still, it's often easier to target concentrations of people where you can cost-share a robot (eg. nursing homes) rather than operating in individual homes. But problems in nursing homes abound too: abysmal connectivity (no WiFi!), antiquated enterprise sales; excessive regulatory costs (FDA), etc.
Maybe costs will come down... but most "good" applications require manipulation, which makes a "general purpose" robot much more expensive than an autonomous car's sensor suites.
At $3k it's in the range of expensive hobby equipment or gardening machinery, so people might start buying them to show off if it's even slightly useful.
Not sure why I got downvoted for the above... the first iPhone was legitimately not good at phone calls. A big part of that was that the AT&T network wasn't up to snuff at the time, though, and AT&T was the only option.