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Comment by basejumping | Hacker News Reader

Boston Dynamics robots seem an order of magnitude further ahead than Aldebarans'. Aldebaran has these tools available because their business is selling these robots who can do tricks and are easy to program, while BD seem to push technology and make mobile robots useful. There's a mistake in the article, a Pepper robot is around 15k not 1.6k.

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NAO is already used in real life [0] in a use-case I could never imaging: helping elderly people with fitness exercises. Apparently, they are selling like hot cakes to Dutch care homes so the human can keep an eye out on the people.

[0] https://youtu.be/fSQ-V8ipKn0?t=3m28s (in Dutch, sorry)

I'm not sure if the price in the article is wrong. NAO costs between 5k-15k, but Pepper uses much cheaper hardware and is sold at a loss so it might be possible to buy it for 1.6k.

Like you mentioned, Boston Dynamics and Aldebaran have different goals. If Google however is interested in making a household robot then I think Aldebaran would have been more suitable for them. Pepper and NAO have actually been used in public places like hotels and shops, but would you imagine one of Boston Dynamics robots being used there?

Well, Aldebaran sells the Pepper robot through it's partners. I know because the company where I work bought 2 Peppers with around 15k each. I've been told it's around the same price in Japan, the difference is that there you pay a small sum at the beginning but then you pay a monthly subscription.

It seems like you are right, their business model had me fooled! The robot costs around 1,200,000 yen (roughly 10,900 dollars) for both the robot and the three year service contract.

That's incredible. I've seen the robot everywhere in Japan and it's generally regarded as completely useless. It makes sense taht it's a subscription model then,

When you're talking to someone at a SoftBank store and Pepper rolls up to rudely interrupt...it makes me laugh every time.

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