Will Lampbot Fold Your clothes?

Hey Robot fans,

This week the battle for your dirty socks heats up. Last week we profiled Figure’s humanoid bot doing laundry, this week we watch lamps come to life and take care of the towels on your bed.

Meet Lume - Your Laundry Folding Decepticon

Lume is a bedside lamp that transforms from a lamp to a robotic arm and works with the other lamp to fold clothes. The video is below and it’s delightful.

Typically, we focus on humanoid robots, because they are awesome, and it’s easy to imagine something that looks like a person doing person-like chores. However, this is a really interesting take from a young robotics company that accomplishes a big goal without a humanoid form factor.

A Big Caveat Before we Move Forward!

Before you throw money at your screen let’s get this truth out of the way, the video is a rendering, not real footage. Important to note that it’s not ‘AI-generated’ it’s a rendering of the prototype they have designed, so some engineer has actually created a digital model of the lamps. The actual prototype (which you can spot behind CEO Aaron Tan in the picture below) looks more like a robotic arm you’d find on an assembly line bolting together a Toyota. But if they get even halfway to what the rendering looks like, we’re all in.

Aaron Tan, the CEO of Syncere, gave an interview and you can see the real prototype in the background.

Are we mad? No. The video rendering was beautiful, and if the actual product looks anywhere close to that, I’m a buyer. Speaking of buyers, I put down a pre-order for this bot for $49.00 on August 4th. It’s now up to $199 to pre-order Lume, indicating pretty large surge of interest.

Are Ambient Robotics The Solution for your Home?

At WeRobot, we’ve been pretty committed to humanoids. Why? Because it’s easier to imagine a person-shaped bot picking up your kids lego bricks, than some robot that looks like chair or a lamp. Syncere skips the humanoid design entirely which is a fascinating approach.

Instead, they’re building toward a world where robots are ambient. Lamps, counters, chairs, or any other object in your home could snap into action, do a chore, and blend back in. It’s almost like the furniture is alive - and in a recent interview Tan alluded to Beauty and the Beast an inspiration for a lamp that does chores.

This is wickedly clever. It solves a few problems with the robotic home future:

• Space - Humanoids take up room, but Lume doesn’t because it IS the furniture. It can work in small apartment or a large home.

• Price - A full priced Lume is $2,000. That’s a price that will actually get in people’s homes. While you won’t find it at Walmart, this is an entry-level robotics purchase that ensures decent adoption.

• Single Function - Lume can only really do one thing. It’s a unitasker. Since it doesn’t have to be able to do a million things, it can one thing really well making both the hardware and the software less complicated.

This ambient robotics thing has us dreaming. What if your kitchen counter had a retractable robotic arm that wiped the counter down at night? What if your bathroom mirror tidied up your vanity? Could you kitchen sink transform to wash dishes for you? It could be pretty amazing.

🤔 Our Take

Syncere has a really cool demo video, and a totally fresh take on home robotics, which we love. The company itself hasn’t raised any money... yet. We expect that to change soon given the popularity of the video. However their investor page is on github (which screams engineer not business leader), and their HQ is in a garage (a few successful companies have started in garage, but it’s still a sign of how early they are). We’re pulling for them in a big way, but getting this lampbot bot to production is far from a sure thing.

And now a word from a WeRobot sponsor, Videos after the break!

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🎥 Video Corner

This section is where we round up the best robot vids from around the web.

Until next time.

The future is bright,
Ferol

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