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Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by blm126 on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @04:23PM (#50358386)
I'm not so sure. If you could rebuild every human space and tool from scratch, you are probably right. However, we live in buildings filled with stairs. We've got tall cabinets with things tucked in them. We've got lawn mowers and snow blowers and leaf blowers and cars. Making a humanoid robot is a much harder problem if you want a cool demo. If you actually want to deploy robots in billions of homes, it might just be the only answer.
Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by tjoff on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @04:38PM (#50358549)
Just have to be compatible?

The xiaomi-robotics-1 concept is but one that seems very doable and very near term.

https://robotics.xiaomi.com/xiaomi-robotics-1.html

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by kovarr on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @06:50PM (#50359847)
If the end-goal is robot maid, aka cooks and cleans for a household, it at minimum needs to handle stairs and uneven ground like gardens.

Something to get the laundry from each room, wash, dry, fold, put away.

Cut and cook ingredients then do the dishes.

Mow the lawn, water the plants and do basic weeding etc.

Maybe even climb a ladder to empty the gutters / clean windows.

A non-humanoid will never be able to accomplish that without dedicated implements.

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by tjoff on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @02:50AM (#50362538)
No it does not. And the type depicted will do all of that except ladders (ridiculous) with small modifications.

I really look forward to that, even if the first versions can't clean the gutters...

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by kovarr on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @11:33AM (#50368021)
The type depicted has one inch castor wheels lol?

It won't be going up stairs or over lawns.

It won't be dusting into the corners of rooms.

If the end goal is something that can do everything a human can do, it'll have to bare the form of a human.

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by makeitdouble on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @05:22PM (#50359084)
Rebuilding and replacing tools doesn't sound that big of an issue to be honest.

I'm starting from the assumption the vast majority of people won't want a robot in their home, even just on principle. Then most people will not need it to do every possible action an human does.

For the remaining people in the target, having adapted/compatible cabinets or furniture is probably less of an issue. If someone requires assistance for instance, they'll probably also don't want hard to access shelves or crazy weird stairs.

The same way people have started choosing furniture that can accommodate a roomba(RIP irobot), we'll adjust our newer homes to whatever makes sense when we get the next wave of home robots.

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by MisterMunchkin on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @06:10PM (#50359507)
That’s a flawed assumption. Everyone wants a live-in bangmaid. They’re just normally too expensive. If you could buy one for 30k, they would fly off the shelves.
Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by makeitdouble on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @10:27PM (#50361194)
Everyone wants a perfect robot at a low cost.

Except it won't happen, so the amount or people wanted a pretty flawed and compromised yet expensive robot will be pretty low.

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by olelele on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:51AM (#50362213)
Sexist much?
Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by derektank on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @02:57AM (#50362580)
Against which sex?
Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by swiftcoder on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @06:16AM (#50363992)
While Hollywood may portray the whole fuckable-robot thing as a male-dominate field, reality suggests the reverse. It's mostly not males that the current generation of powertool-like sextoys are marketed to...
Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by Gasp0de on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @04:53AM (#50363301)
Why wouldn't everyone want a robot that does all your chores, given that it is affordable? Everyone I know uses a washing machine. Do you wash your clothes by hand?
Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by makeitdouble on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @10:41PM (#50374861)
For better or worse, there is a fundamental difference between a tool that does a specific task under command (e.g. a washing machine), nothing else, never by itself, and a general purpose machine with some autonomy (a "robot") .

Many people will want full control over what happens in their house, and potentially feel unsafe having things that move on their own. Where's the line is for "full control" will be personal.

Re:Stringman, an $800 open-source room scale gripper robot by gf000 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @02:38AM (#50362473)
Why not just robo-dog? They can go pretty much everywhere a human can. You just add a strange neck/arm thingy as head and it can do pretty much everything. It's not accident that that became one of the best known robots.