Anyone working with cobots in your factory interested to comment? What's the main competitive advantage that made Universal[1] so successful while Rethink withered away?
Robots are a component of an automation solution. Most solutions will be heavily customized in ways that are specific to the individual customer - who would usually interact with an integrator and not a robot supplier. The integrators, usually small companies with less than 10 employees buy most of the robots on the market. So as a robotics company you have to primarily focus on the integrators and offer a no-bullshit component to them. Extra fluff like the camera and touchscreen will be useless in 95% of cases. Why would i want to pay for that as an integrator?
Additionally, rumor has it the production was too expensive. Maybe due to the fluff. When you're pushing robots on the market below your own cost while the competitor beats you price wise while making a profit - you're going to have a bad time.
The initial aim to provide a robot with nylon bearings and series-elastic actuators wasn't a success, the pivot to the standard industry approach of harmonic drive didn't save them as there was no price/performance advantage over the competition.
I believe quite a few people in the industry saw the Rethink robot like toys that weren't meant serious. I don't know about the actual performance, but the image was there. As an industrial customer you want bulletproof and dirt cheap and not fun to play with.
Thanks, that's very informative.
From what I know, their robots just didn't work that well and the quality wasn't there. They burned through $150M in funding, which shows they didn't have a great product, just a well-known co-founder who was one of the iRobot founders.