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 :)
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.
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.