Circle Medical is "Uber for doctors". That's going to be interesting.
The tea-making robot seems to come with overoptimistic numbers.
The sandwich-making robot is a good idea, but it will need a complete redesign to make it cleanable. All stainless and Teflon, no food trap points, machine-washable, steam-cleanable. Whether it's cost effective is another issue. That idea has been tried many times. Here's AMFare, from American Machine and Foundry, in 1964.[1] That system worked quite well, but needed a constantly busy fast food outlet to justify the expense.
I was quite surprised to see the tea-making and sandwich-making robots.
I met a startup in Hong Kong, CafeX, who were working on a coffee-making robot, and my first reaction was that they were using cutting-edge technology to solve a trivial problem. I do like good coffee though, so I thought through the business case.
It seemed to fit into an awkward gap between "cheap coffee vending machine" and "cafe kiosk with trained barista". People grabbing a convenient coffee in places like gas stations and convenience stores, care about price over quality and will be fine with a cheap machine. People who like quality coffee will usually prefer a trained barista if one is available, unless they want to try the novelty of a robot.
The two niches I can see are:
1) Inside fancy office buildings, where the drones don't want to walk outside to get good coffee. (The robot is also good for impressing visitors).
2) Places without decent cafes around, i.e. shopping malls, theme parks, airports, where the robot might be as good or better than Starfucks burned-for-consistency beans.
"People who like quality coffee will usually prefer a trained barista if one is available, unless they want to try the novelty of a robot."
That's not why Starbucks is so labor-intensive.
Starbucks developed a good automated coffee-making machine, but decided not to deploy it. Instead, they built a lower-profile manual machine which allows their employees to maintain eye contact with the customer. The whole point of Starbucks, the thing that justifies their high prices, is the ego boost the customer gets from making the barista perform. Starbucks is about sucking up. All their employees know this; it's in their training. Starbucks is a fast food operation with the sucking-up level of a sit-down restaurant.
I've only just seen this comment; all I wanted to say is that your interpretation sounds far too cynical. Maybe I just can't fathom what kind of mind gets an ego boost from "making the barista perform".
> People who like quality coffee will usually prefer a trained barista if one is available, unless they want to try the novelty of a robot.
I seem to recall (and I can't remember where I saw it) that Heston Blumenthal uses a very expensive automated coffee machine to remove the variance inherent in human baristas.
If you'd like to see how many of the startups in the current YC batch have evolved over time, I have created a special collection on the S15 group of companies (using content from the Internet Archive):
The companies I have personally found most surprising have been Wheely's Cafe, Nebia, L., Luna, and Scentbird [1] ... great to see YC supporting such unique kinds of companies.
Congratulations to all of the startups who launched!!
A lot more health, bio, and food related startups in this batch.
Tea and sandwich making robots makes me think that one day YC will open its own automated coffeeshop or restaurant. Theoretically lower operating costs, making the business much higher margin. Call9 and Circle Medical look very interesting in the medical space.
And of course, gotta cheer for onboardiq. Their users really love them. They're bringing on clients so quickly and are some of the hardest and smartest workers I've met.
There's no evidence that data motivates people to start doing anything. There's plenty that shows data helps you continue once you've started (if you're succeeding, otherwise data works as a negative reinforcer), but if you haven't started yet, additional data won't help.
There's evidence that the threat of punishment for not slowing down makes you slow down. The signs act as a reminder of that. If it weren't for the law, would many people who are already speeding pay attention to the signs? That would be an interesting thing to test.
I haven't heard of Circle Medical before, but one thing that might be really useful is if they were to "contract" out. Hear me out here :D
There's a big shift moving "risk" to the provider. As a result there's a big focus on not only metrics, but also "care management". I used to work for a company that did metrics, and would look for high cost patients that had "opportunities" for cost savings. Their cases would be transferred to a care management team who would then on a case by case basis investigate ways to help the patient.
From what I've heard a lot of times, the patient would become more expensive because they skipped simple follow up visits due to an issue just getting to the office.
This might be a really easy way to get a patient the followup they need.
I wondered if the misting shower head might feel great but be a bit annoying at rinsing suds? I've noticed that feeling unsatisfying in some showers I've had in hotels.
The water saving aspect is great though. Could there be a similar application with washing dishes?
>The garden consists of “smart capsules” that contain seeds, nutrients and soil that’s geared toward the specific plant. (It’s kind of like a Keurig capsule, but for plants.)
I wouldn't say so. I send my friends money I owe them through Venmo. I make most of my online purchases through PayPal. There's rarely a time where I can substitute one for the other. Although, I don't know the details of the two companies in question.
Fun fact: PayPal owns Venmo. They've tried to keep it quiet because the Venmo brand is much stronger independent from the various screw-ups and annoyances of PayPal.
The big difference: PayPal is for the computer, Venmo is for the smartphone.
The tea-making robot seems to come with overoptimistic numbers.
The sandwich-making robot is a good idea, but it will need a complete redesign to make it cleanable. All stainless and Teflon, no food trap points, machine-washable, steam-cleanable. Whether it's cost effective is another issue. That idea has been tried many times. Here's AMFare, from American Machine and Foundry, in 1964.[1] That system worked quite well, but needed a constantly busy fast food outlet to justify the expense.
Then there's the version for the 1%[2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmXLqImT1wE [2] http://factor-tech.com/robotics/17437-robot-chef-that-can-co...