GoKawiilis a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
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The idea of humanoid robots running our homes has been the stuff of science fiction for years. But unlike hoverboards and self-tying sneakers, a robot housekeeper has never felt close to rolling into our homes. Until now.
This has been the year of the humanoid robot. At CES, there were dozens of human-shaped bots on the show floor, a handful designed for homes. US-based robotics company 1X has already put its $20,000 Neo robot into homes to do housework (with a lot of remote assistance); and this week at the IFA tech show in Berlin, around half a dozen humanoids, mostly from China, will take to a catwalk to show off the alarming (?) acceleration of their skills as they plan to backflip into our lives.
Robots on the Runway takes place on Saturday, Sept. 5th at IFA in Berlin, and will include robots from Primebot Robots, Agibot, Unitree, Ollobot, and Astrall Dynamics. Image: IFA
But do we really need mechanical, multimodal robots that do our housework, or is there a smarter path that doesn’t involve 170-pound hunks of metal that could accidentally kill your dog with one misstep?
During my time with these robots, two things have become clear.
A fully humanoid robot housekeeper just isn’t practical
First, despite my tech-reviewer fascination with humanoid robots, a fully humanoid robot housekeeper isn’t practical. Unlike factories, where humanoids have seen some success, homes are messy, unpredictable environments. Also, most people have stairs. Solving that problem requires a robot that can either fly or have a pair of legs that can exert substantial force — neither of which is a good fit for a home. (Just ask Ring where its much-touted Always Home flying camera is).
Second, tech history has proven that precious few gadgets do multiple things well. We don’t need an expensive jack of all trades and master of none. At CES, I walked around the Las Vegas show floor with a bottle of laundry detergent, challenging every humanoid robot I met to open it. Not a single one could. I was repeatedly told it had to learn how to do it first.
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