[HN Gopher] Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big ...
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Apple explores home robotics as potential 'next big thing'
Author : apike
Score : 43 points
Date : 2024-04-04 20:46 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| apike wrote:
| https://archive.is/Yi6p3
| zachbee wrote:
| "Smart home" has really fallen flat across the board, from smart
| speakers to the Roomba. It would be great if Apple changed that,
| but I'm not optimistic. I just don't think people really want
| smart home devices all that much.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I think the issue is that smart home devices didn't do anything
| I couldn't already do, but a physical switch is faster than
| arguing with the computer.
|
| Hey Google, can you turn off the baby bedroom light?
|
| I'm sorry, I don't know that device.
| ado__dev wrote:
| I used to have a dozen or so Google Home devices for all sort
| of automation, but have mostly given up on it. I feel like
| Google is going to kill these any day now, the Google
| Assistant on them has been getting dumber and dumber. Where
| in the past, it would do its best to provide an answer, now
| for 99% of queries it just says "idk how to help with that."
|
| So the only thing these devices are used for these days in my
| household are setting alarms and turning lights on/off. In
| the next home, probably won't even bother.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| Probably A/B testing but mine answers most questions these
| days, I swear even those it couldn't answer in the past. It
| hasn't given me the I don't know answer in a long while.
| Still mostly used for lights, morning alarms, shop opening
| hours, asking if my dog can eat my snack and the weather.
|
| I know others here saying they can do it themselves but
| nothing beats asking google to turn off the lights in the
| house when I've forgotten and I'm cosy in bed already.
| rubatuga wrote:
| I've totally disabled my entire smart home ecosystem.
| Philips hue thankfully has a hubless fallback (with the
| Zigbee remote). I just hate the unreliable nature of
| wireless devices, and having to manage an account for every
| accessory (Philips hue account, wemo account, iCloud
| account, etc.). Matter/thread which was supposed to be a
| smart home revolution turned out to be a crapshoot
| requiring proprietary Thread border routers.
| crabbone wrote:
| There's also profiteering and security issues. Thermostat
| that wants to connect to "cloud" and needs to know my street
| address, my name etc.? -- Not happening. Companies selling
| "smart" devices instantly overcomplicated relatively simple
| appliances making them beyond DIY repair level, and, on top
| of it, wanted to sell service of supporting these overly
| complicated devices. It's just very hard to see the benefit,
| when all that eg. the thermostat does is turning the boiler
| on and off, saving a few seconds to someone who'd otherwise
| have to do it manually.
|
| There also aren't that many areas where automation could
| possibly accomplish much. I think, the main directions are:
|
| * Optimize energy usage (the same thermostat thing). It
| doesn't really amount to much. It could be useful in
| industrial setting, but for households it just doesn't save
| that much money, even if it works well.
|
| * Cleaning. Making roombas deal with furniture or large
| objects left on the floor seems like mission impossible
| without a significant change in approach. Similarly for
| surfaces that are above the floor (desk, shelves etc.)
| Cleaning the exterior could be its own an quite an
| interesting thing though. Stuff like removing dead foliage
| from the roof for instance, or repainting the walls.
|
| * Cooking. This could be potentially interesting, but will
| probably require a complete redesign of the tools used for
| cooking today to be reasonably priced. Eg. there would be no
| need for knives with handles for humans, because it's easier
| to make a slicing / chopping machine that has a very
| different configuration. Stoves and ovens would need to have
| some way of moving pots in and out automatically. Also,
| they'd probably have to be connected to the fridge and other
| kitchen storage... Which, in the end, means that it's not
| going to be an incremental upgrade. It will be also probably
| difficult to make the automated system coexist with human
| cooks...
| kccqzy wrote:
| > it just doesn't save that much money, even if it works
| well
|
| You should see how wasteful typical American households are
| when they use a dumb thermometer. The best energy-saving
| feature is simply at-home vs away-from-home detection. I
| don't want my HVAC at home to run when I'm away at work or
| worse away at vacation, unless the temperature is really
| extreme. This easily saves me hundreds of dollars for a
| month-long vacation.
|
| > Making roombas deal with furniture or large objects left
| on the floor seems like mission impossible
|
| Roomba the company hasn't innovated in years. Switch to a
| different brand like Roborocks. Also don't choose models
| with a camera for privacy and performance reasons: lidar is
| much better.
| slongfield wrote:
| I have a Roomba, it works pretty well for doing 'maintenance
| level' vacuuming--keeping the level of cat hair to a manageable
| level, etc. For the most part, robot vacuums have succeeded in
| becoming boring, which is what I really want in an appliance.
| ilovetux wrote:
| I want a smart home, but I also do not want to send my data to
| anyone else and I don't really have the time to cobble
| something together.
|
| If apple can refrain from sending the data to icloud or any
| other servers, then I would be very interested.
| nostromo wrote:
| That exists today. Apple's Homekit is the only real solution
| for a smart home that doesn't send everything to/from the
| cloud.
| rubatuga wrote:
| I'm trying to update to v2 of HomeKit in the Home app but
| it won't let me unless I login to iCloud. From what I
| recall v2 of HomeKit relies on a hub spoke model, as
| opposed to v1 which relies more on broadcast packets.
| TheFuzzball wrote:
| Sonos would like a word.
| pquki4 wrote:
| I'm not holding my breath after seeing their stock price.
| leetharris wrote:
| I think it's that most actually useful smart home stuff was
| very quickly saturated. It is great to be able to adjust my
| lights easily. It is great to turn my TV off in the other room.
| It is great to have a robot vacuum.
|
| But a smart coffee maker? A smart clock? A smart dishwasher?
| All this garbage ended up being gimmicks and it ran out of
| steam so quickly.
|
| I hope the things that are useful continue to get support as
| the big players abandon smart home expansion.
| ramenmeal wrote:
| From what I hear, it's a nightmare to get Siri to know what
| light you want to turn on. Unfortunately it seems like apple is
| trailing the pack in the smart home area.
| modoc wrote:
| I really do want smart home devices! My biggest issue so far
| has been stability and interoperability issues between each
| vendor and system. Those things have gotten better, but are
| still a headache. Apple is in a pretty good position to solve
| those pain points (at the cost of buying new devices (Apple
| brand or Apple Certified maybe?). Or maybe I need to dive
| deeper into HomeAssistant...
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| > Or maybe I need to dive deeper into HomeAssistant...
|
| This is the answer.
|
| HomeAssistant is fantastic and has unified everything of mine
| into a single platform. Control mostly happens through Google
| and Apple/Homekit devices (other than hardware switches), and
| everything works pretty seamlessly.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| As another commenter alluded to, good Smarthome tech becomes an
| appliance, which isn't a desirable high margin business, and
| bad tech becomes a nuisance which is also not a desirable
| business.
|
| That's why Google is slowly getting out of it and shifting
| their focus from Nest. That's why Apple never did much beyond a
| few speakers, and it's why Amazon is right at home in that
| business (but even they're getting out of the money-losing
| voice assistant aspect).
|
| Robotics... seem like a miss to me. Very few tasks at home are
| as simple as vacuuming, but maybe I just lack the creativity
| and vision. Apple surely has some great tech left over from the
| car R&D so who knows. Apple is unfortunately not great at a
| "communal" perspective when making things.
|
| I think a big issue no one talks about will be robot
| storage/garages. It's already an issue for Roomba and anything
| bigger will be a no-go for many households. That is probably
| apples best chance - make it pleasant to look at and a status
| symbol.
| pjerem wrote:
| > Robotics... seem like a miss to me. Very few tasks at home
| are as simple as vacuuming
|
| Even vacuuming was pretty hard. Most vacuum robots were a
| disappointment until maybe 2 or 3 years.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Oh absolutely, it just has the advantage of being a well
| know and relatively simple machine (the vacuum), that is
| expected to roll across the floor, and is expected to avoid
| household objects instead of interacting with them.
|
| Almost all other tasks either operate at human-hands level
| (significantly bigger robot) or need intimate understanding
| of you and your home (eg picking things up off the floor)
| or need a ton of dexterity (folding clothes). Or all three.
| chongli wrote:
| I like smart devices for their automation potential. I use
| smart plugs to turn on and off lights, coffee makers, grow
| lights, heating mats. The ability to quickly program a plug to
| turn on every morning at 10am and turn off again at 10pm is
| valuable to me. It's even more valuable if you get into hobbies
| like aquarium keeping where you can automate lights and fish
| feeders.
|
| Yes, you can do all of these things manually, but are you good
| at keeping a flawless schedule? It may not matter if you forget
| to turn on the coffee maker but it matters a lot if you forget
| to feed the fish. And you won't always be available to handle
| these things every single day, unless you work from home and
| follow an extremely rigid schedule.
| stevage wrote:
| I'm curious about the coffee maker bit. I drink espresso and
| I can't really imagine a benefit in turning something a
| device on if someone isn't there to also put coffee in it,
| pour it etc.
|
| How much time does it save you having your coffee maker or
| before you go to get coffee?
| rubatuga wrote:
| The thing with a fish feeder is that it can be completely
| analog and still work fine.
| pjerem wrote:
| I have the feeling that basically all current smart home
| products are either a disappointment in their limitations or
| useful but really time consuming.
|
| The only smart appliances I got are Philips hue lights which
| are nice but well, after the initial discovery, I use them as
| classical light bulbs 99% of the time. I've found zero useful
| automation (not saying they don't exists) and I can't see why I
| would control lighting from my phone (at least not enough to
| justify spending hundreds into smart bulbs and smart switches).
|
| Ultimately, I'm not against smart home but since each home is
| unique, by definition, those objects are only useful if the
| user is willing to invest enough time to tailor the
| configuration to be useful in his own unique house.
|
| Oh I thought about ranting about my experience with Sonos
| speakers which are really nice speakers with great audio
| quality for the money and size and everything you'd want except
| the "smart" part you are forced to use with their terrible (and
| closed) software.
| stevage wrote:
| I thought I would be into smart home devices, but the companies
| fucked up by turning them into privacy and security
| liabilities, with poor interoperability and likelihood of
| turning into junk when the company goes under.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _""Smart home " has really fallen flat across the board,... I
| just don't think people really want smart home devices all that
| much."_
|
| Or are these devices just so common, unremarkable, and
| ubiquitous now that you just aren't noticing them anymore? I
| can't think of any of my friends and family who don't at least
| have some smart speakers and smart lighting devices in their
| home.
|
| Smart door locks that you can open with your phone, and smart
| door bells and security cameras that you can monitor remotely
| are becoming pretty common too.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| It would be nice to have a tripod on wheels that can have my iPad
| follow me around, and possibly respond to voice commands (move
| up, move down) or possibly integrate with the iPad camera to
| automatically be at eye level.
|
| I've been using this and it's great but has its limitations:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J6HBY1Q
| pquki4 wrote:
| I see it as the potential 'Next Apple Car'
| purpleblue wrote:
| They should just fix Siri and iTunes. Siri is shockingly useless.
| If Siri were even a little more useful I would get a Home Pod but
| it's utterly useless for most things except setting timers and
| turning on lights.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Whisper >>>> Siri
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Yeah, in retrospect, it was silly to think the company
| responsible for Siri was going to succeed in the self-driving
| car business... _or_ the robot business.
|
| They need some actual management talent, evidently.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| I want something that cleans my bathroom and toilet. I will buy
| it for my business and will pay 20-30k/year.
|
| Also, something to Clean my dishes (Load in the dishwasher, turn
| it on, and put it away).
|
| Doing my laundry - load, wash and fold. Mow the lawn.
| huytersd wrote:
| Automated lawn mowing is relatively mature at this point and
| works well, assuming you have a relatively flat lawn.
|
| A one time purchase price of 20k would be acceptable. $20-30k
| per year is ridiculous. For that price you can hire a person to
| come and clean your toilet for 5 hours a day, every single day.
| sgt wrote:
| So... I have a gardener. He works two days a week doing all
| kinds of stuff.
|
| The mowing itself (and trimming) takes 5% of his time, or
| even less.
|
| Funny how people enjoy automating the part that you easily
| could do yourself without a massive time impact.
| huytersd wrote:
| It depends. My backyard lawn is about 2 acres in size. It
| takes me 1.5 hours to manually mow it with a small 21 inch
| powered push mower. I just let the auto mower do its thing
| continuously and it charges itself. Costs almost nothing
| since I sharpen the blades about once a month myself. It's
| also nice because the grass is _always_ trimmed. You don't
| have to go through the let it get tall and the landscaper
| mows it down every two weeks cycle.
| sgt wrote:
| Pretty sure you can get a domestic service to pop by at much
| lower than that. Biologics are still king.
| guhidalg wrote:
| I would pay like $5000 for a laundry folding robot. I just want
| a big washing-machine sized box where I dump my laundry at the
| top and slowly everything gets folded. That's 1 hour / week
| freed up.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| You could get yourself a drying cabinet (basically a closet
| with an A/C inside).
| guhidalg wrote:
| That could handle items on hangers, but I'm talking about
| folding underwear, shorts, T-shirts, pants, etc... That
| requires careful manipulation.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| I used to think so, too, but solved this the following:
|
| Hanging _EVERYTHING_. Not only shirts and jackets, but
| also t-shirts, pants, shorts.
|
| This leaves one drawer each for socks and underwear,
| which both is not horrible from a laundry management
| perspetive.
| CPLX wrote:
| I just want a machine that will produce a cup of something that
| is almost, but not completely, unlike tea.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Thank you for reminding me of this fabulous book.
| exe34 wrote:
| You can get shitty vending machines for that!
| canthonytucci wrote:
| If you replace enough of your cabinets with dishwashers you
| never need to put dishes away again.
| paxys wrote:
| I know being late to the game and doing the tech "right" in terms
| of design and usability is kinda Apple's thing, but lately it
| seems like they have been only picking areas that weren't
| successful for a reason, like insurmountable technical
| difficulties or lack of customer interest, and no amount of
| Apple's design or marketing magic can fix that. See - self
| driving, AR/VR, smart speakers, folding phones, now home
| robotics. I know for a fact that they have been hiring a bunch of
| engineers from Google's Everyday Robots division (which shut down
| last year), but I really can't see why the same people will be
| successful under a new corporate overlord.
| rain_iwakura wrote:
| that failure is much more a leadership issue than a talent
| issue. Google was founded by PhD students and it shows. (I am
| one.) It's like a giant lab where things get prototyped and
| innovations are pushed, but where product ends up sidelined by
| bloated admin (how many levels are there and why does it feel
| like an MMORPG i.e World of Warcraft) and lack of clear
| capitalist vision (I'm actually anti-capitalist but even I can
| admit to this LOL). Honestly, it sounds exactly like a
| university. I used to think Google was slated to be the king of
| AI back when I starting out because they had ALL the talent
| (even OpenAI is its offshoot if you consider early employees
| and Ilya himself). I feel like it was so lateral that it was a
| loose federation of small tribes of smart people that live
| under the same banner, but not a tight organization where each
| team had its purpose within a giant mechanism. But as the
| saying goes too many cooks spoil the broth.
|
| Apple is WAY different internally. For all its dreariness and
| corpo atmosphere (not allowed to talk to each other, teams
| siloed and laser focused on shipping a specific product) they
| have much clearer vision of what will sell and what not, usual
| company missteps (AR glasses) notwithstanding.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I also can't imagine a home robotics use case that I would get
| excited over. Can anyone think of anything? I would guess any
| new product would be more complex, less efficient, and a
| security risk. It'll be cool and trendy for a few months and
| then die off. Just like the Alexa and Google speakers that can
| tell you the weather or adjust your lights...is it REALLY that
| useful outside of entertaining your nieces and nephews? My
| guess is that they'll make some revenue from collecting user
| data and selling it to data brokers or something.
|
| Edit: someone below said laundry folding robot. I'd see that as
| useful.
| exe34 wrote:
| I imagine an ageing population with social isolation might be
| the golden ticket for this kind of work.
| nostromo wrote:
| I'm shocked by your comment. Everyone that doesn't enjoy
| cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, mowing the lawn, or taking
| out the trash would LOVE a home robot that really works.
|
| Of course, these are very hard problems to take on -- much
| harder than a "smart" light switch -- but the market is
| absolutely there.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > Everyone that doesn't enjoy cleaning, cooking, doing
| laundry, mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash would
| LOVE a home robot that really works.
|
| We are far, far away from any of the remaining tedious
| parts of those things being done competently by a robot.
|
| - Dishes: dishwashers already do the majority of the labor
| intensive part.
|
| - Laundry: the washer already does the labor intensive
| part.
|
| - Mowing: if you don't trust robot cars, you shouldn't
| trust a moving robot with blades attached.
|
| - Taking out the trash: I don't see buying a multi-thousand
| dollar robot to save me the 20 seconds it takes to walk the
| garbage out.
|
| Even robot vacuums are kinda terrible.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Upvote for robot vaccums - even value ones are pretty
| good these days (imo)
| V99 wrote:
| Traversing a rectangle of grass at 2mph in a backyard is
| absurdly simpler than self-driving cars on open roads,
| and the absolute worst-case is something like a foot or
| pet injury.
|
| There are multiple companies that already sell automatic
| lawn mowers in the $1000+ range. Some you bury a boundary
| wire around the target area, others figure it out with
| cameras.
| burkaman wrote:
| I don't personally find them exciting but robotic vacuum
| cleaners are pretty popular, I guess they could make an
| expensive one of those and be successful.
| judah wrote:
| The company that builds a robot that can do household chores
| will be very, very rich.
|
| I want a bot that can do laundry (load washer, load dryer,
| fold, put away), do the dishes (rinse, put in dishwasher, put
| clean dishes away, wash pots & pans), vacuum floors, dust,
| clean up messes, empty garbage bins, take out the trash, mow
| my lawn, trim bushes, clean tables, mop floors, make meals,
| cleans toilets and sinks and bathrooms.
|
| Currently myself and my wife split these duties, and kids
| help a bit. But it's still a ton of work for us. I would love
| to offload all that and more to a robot.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Pretty much this. We pay a cleaning service for the
| privilege to vacuum and dust.
|
| A robot that does it for me that I can buy for $15k and
| last a decade? Id be all over it.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Robots can already vacuum and mop floors pretty decently
| for <$2k.
|
| No one is building a robot to dust your antique china
| collection anytime soon.
| layer8 wrote:
| Human-sized robots (arguably needed for some of the tasks
| you list, being able to walk stairs, etc.) will be creepy
| due to how they'll be physically imposing, and with a risk
| of being dangerous due to how massive they'll need to be,
| for example falling over due to
| malfunction/collision/tripping, and potentially crushing a
| small child. I don't see such a product happening for home
| use.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| Food prep.
|
| There are already products for infants that will prep baby
| food. It's harder to do something more complicated than that.
| Meal kit type meals that take grocery store ingredients as an
| input would likely do well with the well to do 30+ crowd that
| is in the middle of having kids and home remodels and is
| upset at how much delivery restaurant food they eat.
|
| I'm definitely not projecting ;).
|
| I think there's likely a market for just the iBabyFood maker
| let along coming closer to an automated chef that's "smarter"
| than buying a meal kit.
|
| My experience with smart vacuums is that the more "AI" they
| add to them the worse they get. I've switched brands a few
| times and have always preferred the dumber models. I'm sure
| old iPhone tech and some computer vision know how would make
| a "Roomba killer" possible but I don't know how many people
| are going to by the Beats by Dre Vacuum. Maybe a lot?
|
| As things become more solarized a cross "platform" energy
| management system would be useful. Load controllers exist but
| often they're tied to solar batteries or EVSEs. In my case I
| could avoid the cost of a panel update if there was a good
| system for load control that also wouldn't upset my family.
| I.e. if they need to handle a transfer switch they will not
| be happy. More like, "if I'm running the jacuzzi and it's
| winter, gate the AC but not the heat pump. If it's summer
| gate the heat pump Aux heat but not the heat pump itself"
|
| Most load controllers are focused on making a generator or
| battery run critical loads and don't really work for larger
| more electrified homes on 200A panels.
| nostromo wrote:
| I like that Apple is taking on big hard futuristic problems,
| like AR/VR, AI, and home robotics.
|
| But from a business perspective it seems unlikely to be
| successful. Apple could "easily" sell a luxury car and TVs and
| print many billions of dollars right away. They wouldn't need
| unproven tech -- they could just use their design skills along
| with vertical integration to have very nice products that
| people would want to buy. Apple should eschew some of Silicon
| Valley's obsessions, like self-driving cars, which most people
| do not care about at all, and instead focus on their strengths.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Sounds like you've never been in a Waymo. It's so much better
| than an Uber it's not even funny, and that's worth many
| billions right there.
| layer8 wrote:
| Apple just recently cancelled their car project after ten
| years of R&D and spending over $10 billion.
| npunt wrote:
| One thing about Apple is things can make sense for them to
| explore that don't make sense for others to. They have a big
| enough ecosystem, enough cash to do R&D on an idea for
| _decades_ , and a culture of killing things that aren't good
| enough that make them an ideal place to determine whether ideas
| are a conceptual dead end versus just haven't been executed
| well enough (or tied to the right ecosystem to make them work).
|
| Foldables make sense for Apple to explore because even if it's
| ~5% likely to be able to be productized, the return is measured
| in the tens of billions.
|
| Smart speakers were comparatively cheap and are probably
| profitable, so even if they're not a huge market they made
| sense.
|
| AR/VR remains to be seen. Meta's still learning how to build
| hardware and operating systems and still learning how to sell
| actual products, so they're probably not the right ones to test
| concept risk when they already have so much execution risk.
| They also don't have the leverage or insertion point that Apple
| does if e.g. AR/VR turns into an alternative to computers &
| iPhones instead of an alternative to consoles. It may also be
| that Vision Pro is just a prelude to AR that ship in ~2035 but
| lays so much groundwork that nobody stands a chance at
| competing by the time the tech is ready, letting Apple secure
| the next trillion dollar product.
|
| Cars were expensive and cancelled, that's the one that required
| Apple to stretch the most in terms of both brand and execution.
|
| In your Google example, remember they invented transformers and
| yet did nothing with them. Any failure in Google's robotics
| efforts are likely due to Google having an absolutely horrible
| record of shipping and standing behind products. I wouldn't
| trust a Google robot because I wouldn't trust a Google
| _product_.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Not playing everywhere is an existential risk. Because IT is so
| integrative, if anyone gets a huge leg up in any sector, Apple
| risks getting shut out in a lot of other sectors.
|
| Spatial Computing/iVision is, for example, a claim in vr. It
| gives them some exposure to the market, some ability to extend
| & integrate their existing application/computing ecosystem into
| this medium. Ditto for all the other pieces; they're all
| integrative. Smart speakers work with airplay. iWatch works
| with iPhone works with iOS. The close integration lets them
| rebuff innovation in any other field: no one small can come
| along and build the next VR headset or the best watch to
| compete with Apple in any of these sectors, because no one can
| integrate like Apple. No one else has all the products. You
| have to have complete over the horizon horizontal control to
| keep your intense market power, and Apple is invested above all
| in there never being a chink in that armor, in making sure they
| can completely dictate the shape of all products by producing &
| owning all the products themselves. This is Apple.
|
| Hence, Apple has to dabble everywhere. It maintains the most,
| it prevents real competition from forming, and it earns them a
| couple % revenue here and there to boot.
|
| Expressing an entirely different brand of cynicism, I'd also
| ask: where else _could_ Apple look to expand into? None of
| these sectors has been a runaway success. But it 's not like
| Apple's missing the boat on some massive new tech that a huge
| new Total Addressable Market. It's been absent from Crypto and
| AI but generally it's just expanding wherever there's any
| opportunity, and why not when you have the cash & when any
| sector _could_ become huge?
| nxobject wrote:
| That's true, _and_ I think there's a tendency to think that
| Steve Jobs only launched things he knew were immediate hits -
| when products that look influential in retrospect, like iPods
| and the MacBook Air, took a few years to really take off.
| nxobject wrote:
| For what it's worth, I don't know whether we'll ever know all
| of the Jobs-era skunkworks projects that were shut down before
| they ever saw the limelight. The lid on the rumors was much
| tighter back then.
| d--b wrote:
| There are a bunch of things in a house that are time consuming
| that would benefit from the help of robots. In fact it's all the
| things that rich people can afford to hire someone to do:
|
| - cooking
|
| - cleaning
|
| - taking care of kids
|
| You can be sure that a ton of people are working on those.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Ok. Now you're just reading the script from the hit Disney
| channel movie Smart House
| woah wrote:
| > Near its campus in Cupertino, California, Apple has a secret
| facility that resembles the inside of a house -- a site where it
| can test future devices and initiatives for the home.
|
| Apple has a condo in Cupertino?
| testfrequency wrote:
| WWDC21
| buescher wrote:
| UL has, or had, a whole house in Fremont (maybe Milpitas)
| associated with their Fremont lab location for testing Wi-
| Fi/Bluetooth/etc interoperability in a "real-world" setting.
| They're not the only test lab to do something like that,
| either.
|
| It would not surprise me at all if Apple had a similar facility
| for themselves, especially for internal demos, user testing,
| and sanity checks.
| prewett wrote:
| Sounds like Apple needs to increase its dividend, this does not
| sound like a promising use of capital for Apple.
| howerj wrote:
| I was about to say the same thing, Apple have too much capital
| and they do not know what to do with it. It would be better to
| give it back to their investors instead of...this.
| thangalin wrote:
| Barring major technical glitches, installation and configuration
| of a reliable locally hosted Zigbee-based solution is on the
| order of two hours.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJEwrSSFe9s
|
| Here's what I used: Raspberry Pi Model 4 B
| Raspberry Pi CPU Raspberry Pi CPU heatsink (w/self-
| adhesive) Raspberry Pi manual Raspberry Pi A/C
| adapter Raspberry Pi case ConBee II Zigbee USB
| gateway USB ADATA Micro SD card reader USB cable
| Micro SD card (for operating system and Home Assistant)
| Ethernet cable (probably not needed because the Pi 4 has onboard
| WiFi)
|
| Thermostats: https://www.sinopetech.com/en/products/thermostat/
|
| I haven't tried running a local text-to-speech engine backed by
| an LLM to control Home Assistant (HA). Maybe someone is working
| on this already?
|
| TTS: https://github.com/SYSTRAN/faster-whisper
|
| LLM: https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile/releases
|
| LLM: https://huggingface.co/TheBloke/Nous-
| Hermes-2-Mixtral-8x7B-D...
|
| HA: https://www.home-assistant.io/
|
| It would take some tweaking to get the voice commands working
| correctly.
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| Japan makes incredible bidet toilets that got some traction
| during the pandemic. The jokes write themselves but a smart
| toilet that had health tracking features liked to the rest of the
| Apple fitness eco-system could be interesting.
|
| The security camera, door lock, and thermostat space has room for
| improvement. The annual subscription model for cameras combined
| with their privacy gaps opens a space for Apple. My car unlocks
| when I walk up to it. Shouldn't my house do the same?
|
| Kitchen appliances have gone done in quality to the point that
| they are replaced every few years when the linear motors fail. I
| don't know if there is enough margin for Apple but knowing what
| food is cycling through the kitchen would be another interesting
| health input.
|
| 3D printer, laser cutter, replicator machine that manufactures
| physical goods in your house.
|
| Automatic pool/hot tub system that keeps chemical levels balanced
| and orders supplies as needed.
|
| Urban gardening pods that allow anyone to grow healthy food at
| home.
| notyourav wrote:
| I wish there was a vacuum bot that didn't need so frequent
| maintenance.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| I'm guessing if they're successful, the result will be something
| extremely expensive.
| kgwxd wrote:
| _facepalm emoji_
| futureshock wrote:
| This seems like one of the most hideously complex products you
| could possibly choose. Self driving cars were already out of
| reach for Apple and their team abandoned the effort. How do they
| think they are going to navigate and clean people's homes!?
| ENGNR wrote:
| For me the "transformative" aspect of personal robotics is...
| maintenance
|
| Why does every store have self opening doors, but no houses do? I
| think it's because paying ~$500/year to get it running again when
| it breaks feels like a waste to almost any home owner. The same
| with other random innovations, like a car stacker to push your
| car into the garage roof when not in use so you can use the
| garage (the hydraulics would break), fans and pumps to move heat
| in or out of the house or water around the garden, they're a pain
| because they break, it's only worth it if you're running a
| commercial operation.
|
| So homes end up with the absolute minimum number of things that
| could break. Calling out trades for the few things people must
| have requires smart people who are physically able, that have
| their ticket in a protected industry (in many countries). But a
| robot could have the same knowledge and physicality - at a fixed
| yearly cost.
|
| If that were to happen, homes would transform as all sorts of
| things that require very occasional maintenance would start to
| appear. If something breaks even a very weak robot could diagnose
| it, find the parts online, have them delivered and probably
| install them.
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