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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually shocked YC invested in this product. Who's buying a robot that they then need to sit down and program - only to do things like ... what? Water a plant? (with the caveat that the glass must be pre-filled with water and sitting in a spot for the robot to grab) I cannot think of this being able to do anything remotely useful and having the juice be worth the squeeze. Hate to be such a grump about it but really what are the real-world use cases? The website does absolutely nothing to show me why I might want or need this product. It's a scratch in search of an itch.

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That's some concrete feedback :)

On your example: You can also teach it to fill the glass with water before going to the plant.

And you're right, this is not even close to something the mass public would use, but that's not our goal for now. Right now this is for people who want to make robots, and the value proposition lies in the method to teach it and see what you can make of it. It's our job to make something that learns fast enough that it actually feels useful to our customers.

I take from what you said that the website does not make it clear what the use-cases are, so we'll make an effort on that. Although it's a goal for us to market this clearly right now as a builder's tool, and I don't want to make it seem like we're already at mass-market capability.

I added in another comment a list of use-cases that are already / will be possible, I can't put a link to it though but you can find it by searching on the page for "here is what we foresee" :)

Funny. I have a robot vacuum that I have to refill the water tank periodically and empty the dust bin. Even with your limited example, there's value in the automation. Thankfully they aren't restricted to just that. It's their first robot after all.

Also big time yes. Many folks would pay big money for a dumb robot that does just 1 or 2 tasks well - and even with that... how good is a Roomba really? It misses places, it gets stuck, and there's still 10M sold every year.

You want a robot that does the task well enough AND for which if it fails it's not a big deal if it's not too often.

For bigger robots that can break stuff it will be too annoying, but for Maurice, I don't think so.

lol, everything starts somewhere - use some imagination.

Truthfully I am trying! I know how hard it is to get a product off the ground especially something like this which is a hybrid of a hardware platform interacting with the physical world and software to operate it.

The intruder demo is cool - but I have security cameras which can achieve an identical response (if not better, since they are at elevation, concealed, cannot be manipulated or disarmed or tossed into a closet with a closed door etc).

If the company were to give me this device for free, and pay for me to take a month off of work to dedicate myself to engineering a program for it to run (I have been writing python ~20 years) I STILL could not come up with a compelling argument for it. At this point the best thing I can come up with would be covering it in a giant stuffed teddy bear and letting it run wild in my yard so my dog could chase it. But is that worth $2,000 and the opportunity cost of sitting down to program it? Absolutely not.

I can see it being valuable to a middle/high school as a learning tool ... but to the layman absolutely not. It is a niche, low-volume business at best.

Another great point you make here, and that I agree with is:

Indeed some of these use-cases are already possible for cheaper and faster and better with other solutions. But each of these requires you to install something new in your home, which is time and money. This platform, and the whole of general-purpose robotics, is about creating a product that will ultimately will do everything well enough that you the marginal gain of using something specialized is not worth the time to install it. And many use-cases like folding laundry or loading the dishwasher are not doable with anything else anyway.

You also make great points on the fact it takes time to make it work, but that's just for the first robot. Once we have enough of these out there and enough data, the time required to do any of these tasks will be much smaller.

It's already quite remarkable that today a consumer can teach an arm to grab a glass with a couple buttons when 3 years ago you would have had to ask a team of engineers to create a complex system to do that. So imagine where we'll be 3 years from now :)

genuinely impressed by your tact and quality of response to such a weirdly hostile message

Haha thank you. But really, his message was full of very concrete remarks that help us get better at presenting what we do.

What about my message is hostile? Serious question. I know I’m being critical but I’m not trying to be hostile.

Have you ever been to an investor meeting? That is a true hostile environment. Consider this the dry run.

Leading with "I'm actually shocked YC invested in this product" in response to a startup launch strikes me as hostile. For example.

People routinely underestimate the hostility in their own comments. You should probably multiple your perception of it by 10x to have a sense of how it's landing with the median reader. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I’m sorry dang but no, this is not hostility. Again a startup has a monumental mountain to climb, critical and authentic feedback is absolutely not hostile. It’s valuable food for thought.

The link you referenced is looking for “objects in the mirror” I’m not sure how that’s related here.

Frankly HN has become an Orwellian environment, perhaps after 14+ years I’m no longer welcome here.

In my experience investors are actually too nice and don't tell you what they think.

I'm European (French), I like folks that are direct and whom with we can discuss

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