I'm not sure where this figure comes from. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the Apple ][ cost ~ $6,000.
> Previously shown off to a few thousand rabid fans at the West Coast Computer Faire, the Apple II’s arrival means the masses can finally get their hands on the breakthrough machine. A base unit costs $1,298 — the equivalent of $5,810 in 2021 money.
https://www.cultofmac.com/484382/tiah-apple-ii-goes-on-sale/
Maybe all it takes is a good, but overpriced robot selling for around $6,000. The high cost of Apple's first computers was a major driver for a work-alike computer market that included Atari, Commodore, TI, Coleco, and Tandy.
If the Marketplace Disruption view of PC history is any guide, I suspect the first wildly successful robotic product will cause professionals to turn up their noses in disgust at the triviality of it all. They'll bemoan the lack of practical applications. They'll cluck at all of the things it can't do. Meanwhile, a small group of buyers will find the toy-like things irresistible. This product might have already been introduced.
Also, it's instructive to consider all of the things that were predicted for home computers vs. how things ended up turning out. Many of the concepts were sound (games, recipes), but few thought of the role a ubiquitous, worldwide, fast network infrastructure would play in creating entirely new classes of uses for small computers. And almost nobody predicted the astonishing rate of miniaturization/performance increases that would occur and which continues to this day.