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Comment by jasondigitized | Hacker News Reader

I don't want a humanoid robot. I want a purpose built robot.

Obviously both will exist and compete with each other on the margins. The thing to appreciate is that our physical world is already built like an API for adult humans. Swinging doors, stairs, cupboards, benchtops. If you want a robot to traverse the space and be useful for more than one task, the humanoid form makes sense.

The key question is whether general purpose robots can outcompete on sheer economies of scale alone.

It's called a dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer. Plus like robomowers, vaccums etc.

I mean, I would take a robot to handle all of my housework.

Purpose built, that probably takes the form of a humanoid robot since all of tasks it needs to do were previously designed for humanoids.

Vacuuming and mopping are not inherently "designed" for humans.

Dusting with a single extensible and multiple degrees of freedom arm would be much more maneuverable than a human arm.

Loading and unloading washing machines or dryers or doign the same for dishes and cutlery in a dishwasher is not inherently designed for humans.

If anything, selling an integrated "housekeeping" system that fits into an existing laundry and combines features would be a much better approach.

I agree that each would be made slightly better with a more integrated system. But you could handle all of them in my hundred year old house with the form factor it was designed for: a humanoid. Probably pretty soon here for cheaper than each could be handled separately by more integrated systems.

For new builds, a laundry/utility room that includes the dishwashing and other "housekeeping" facilities is a no-brainer when there is a custom robot built to use those facilities as well as maneuver around the rest of the house.

For old/retrofit renovations it also makes sense, but otherwise, yes, a human-form robot makes sense.

The question is which is a better investment for any robot manufacturer in 2026?

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