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Comment by notheguyouthink | Hacker News Reader

Damn, seems like this isn't intended for home use. I had my wallet out. No idea why, but I'd love a little robotic "pet" that was able to navigate the world.

Bonus points if it had an API to easily "train" it. Endless fun

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the Nao robot was over $20,000 -- how much do you think this will cost? Pepper is $7,000 and it has no legs. One arm and no navigation skills is $8000, two arms is $25000 from rethink, right?

I'm guessing it'll be over $100K

My guess as well, the R&D that has gone into this would certainly allow it to be that much. But once it's out in the open I'm sure some people will take it apart and hopefully we will see easier (cheaper) ways of recreating it DIY style.

The hardware on these things is pretty beefy too tbh. Like it's not just motors and servos from the electronics hobby shop.

it's like legitimate hydraulic suspension and batteries and power supplies and obviously, LIDAR + it's accompanying software

I would love to DIY this thing but it's a lot more advanced than DIYing even a Powerwall or a Model S

I forgot about LIDAR, in that case, my estimate was too low. LIDAR stuff is expensive, even the lowest end stuff is thousands.

An agricultural grade LIDAR sensor (for drones) costs $250-$500. I wouldn't trust it in my Tesla, but for a DIY Spot Mini clone it'll do.

Still, that's just the sensor...

(based on my very small amount of knowledge) -- the LIDAR in the recent SpotMini video looks high res/high quality -- would a cheap one mean mis-stepping on stairs? I imagine problems of quality abound for less than several thousand

Can you buy one of these with an SDK?

You'd have to roll your own... there are libraries for Raspberry Pi and Arduino though.

I think the parts are probably at least 20K, and the software is the proprietary effort of many, over a decade or more, so the homebrew version will be incomparably inferior, to the point where it's not really "the same thing", like how a Power Wheels car isn't a Tesla.

I spent some time with a Nao unit during a project in college - I don't understand how they've gotten away with this pricing.

By selling them to institutions, with support, rather than people, but also because it's decent. Cheaper robots are all jerky and jittery and slow and have no other sensors/cameras and no decent software interface (that I have seen, but I'm not even an amateur roboticist, I just read about it sometimes).

Ours overheated after a few minutes of extending its hands forward, so it tried to sit, but collapsed, because apparently it needed functioning arms to do that. Fortunately my lab buddy was there to catch it.

For my application I needed microphones which were plentiful, but placed on the head that also contained the CPU with a cooling fan - needless to say I got much better readings from my smartphone.

That being said our Nao was and old model so perhaps they fixed those issues.

Lol no idea - it was just a reaction to the title. When I clicked on the link, I lost hope. If they're selling what's in the image, the parts alone cost more than I want to pay :P

So, in 5 years it'll be a $1000 piece of hobbyist equipment like a Parrot drone and in 10 years a smaller version will be available for $100 for kids?

Unlikely, the NAO Robots have been around since 2008 and they still cost quite a lot of money. The hardware on these things is pretty impressive, and since it's more of a platform for R&D then a general product, the demand for them will be constrained to University research labs and R&D groups at companies able to afford the like $100k+ price tag, so they'll never be mass produced. The same situation exists with the NAO robots.

Give it time. Shortly after someone is able to afford one and walk around town with it, there will be laws "regulating their use".

Wouldn't an Aibo be more appropriate?

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