[xiaolingxiao]

Considering a hardware robotics startup right now. Can you expand on this : All the "user friendly" gimmicks are just obstacles in their way.

And what were some of your other conclusions having worked on an arm solution?

[ragebol]

I think what your parent comment means is summarized by something said by, i think Colin Angle (iRobot CEO), about iRobot: "to become successful, we had to become a vacuum cleaning company, instead of a robotics company".

Nobody cares about what's inside the black box you are selling, as long as it solves your problem. Doesn't matter if that is vacuum cleaning with either a robot or a human, getting stuff from a to b with either a compliant arm with fancy computer vision or a human or custom, inflexible automation.

I'm currently in a robotics company, we make various mobile manipulators with some internal storage. Got acquired by, of course, a logistics company a couple years ago to be part of their overall solutions.

[leoedin]

I think the other comment pretty much captured it. If you don't make a complete plug and play package, your robotics are just going to be part of a bigger solution developed by another business. The nature of putting together a complete process automation solution is that it's a highly technical job which takes a lot of time. Your customers are not the people working around the robot - they are the automation designer / integrator who is building the solution - and they are far less bothered about swish UIs and safety features than they are about good APIs, physical repeatability, good hardware availability - all the things OEMs care about when selecting a component in their system.

We found a lot of the time people "wanted" a robot arm, but then when they got it they sat it on a shelf - because the work required to turn a robot arm into a useful automated process is massive. Having a cheaper or easier to use robot arm doesn't stop you needing fixtures, jigs, conveyor belts etc.