[ikesau]

If I were to spend $10,000 on cleaning, I think I'd prefer to have 100 weeks of a human cleaner that can vacuum, scrub, climb stairs, etc.

But, I take the point that more and more of these tasks will be automated more effectively in the coming decade.

[fragmede]

Do you spend that kind of money on it now using humans? Talk is cheap. I'm not saying I'd buy one given unknown capabilities and price, but $10k isn't that much for a robot, G1 is currently selling one for $16k and it doesn't do anything.

The first buyers are going to be the mid-wealthy. Live-in maid service is expensive. If the robot actually works, $50k for a live-in maid that you don't need to have space for an apartment in your mansion for them to live in is cheap.

[zoeysmithe]

This is a bit like saying "Buy a commodore 64 to store recipes? I'd rather have a recipe book," in 1985.

The home robot most likely will do much more than those things. It'll clean, but also be a guard dog, accept packages, garden, clean your car, reads stories to the baby, play catch with the dog, etc. Or at least in theory if the technology catches up.

How often do you hire people? And work with things like this? There's a real mental load and privacy and scheduling load here that robots solve. It can be very hard to find someone, then the time/investment of being home when they are available, etc. I'd rather have a substandard cleaning that's easy and convenient than getting these deep cleans and working with people, cleaning services, scheduling, the social and mental load of a stranger in your house, the issues about your own privacy, etc.

I think the success of the roomba shows that people will settle for less, and pay a lot for it. My robot vacuum is the worst vacuum and mop I've ever seen but it does it automatically and that means a lot to me. I just press a button and things are clean-ish. That has a lot of value. More complex robots will benefit from that kind of dynamic I imagine.

[dsr_]

The lesson of that is that you should wait at least 20 years before getting a device that purports to do the thing well, and maybe 40. And even then, people will still publish recipe books and cooking technique books.

Right now, people who have flat floors, not too much pile on rugs and carpets, no pets or pets that don't shed much, no stairs, and don't have much in the way of mess are quite happy with their robot vacuum cleaners. Mostly. But vacuuming is pretty much the least annoying and tedious part of cleaning your house, and modern bagless upright convertible cleaners are cheap and lightweight.

People with medium sized flat boring lawns seem happy with their robot lawnmowers.

But its faster to get a service with the big mowers to do it, and the job gets done better by the humans, especially if you need to consider edges or have bushes to trim or leaves to move.

[newsclues]

I have a job as a cleaner. We have clients who spend about that hiring us to do regular weekly cleaning.

But they still own a robotic vacuum, which they can deploy the other six days a week we aren’t there.

Initially the people who buy home robots can afford humans and robots.

Still so far away from being able to replace humans for all tasks, the difference between low hanging fruit (vacuum hardwood floors) and difficult tasks (dusting fragile art) is vast.

[bee_rider]

That’s 100 weeks at $100 per week. So, what, 5 hours per week, at most, for over-the-table and legit options, right?

That could be an interesting option, but realistically you’ll have to fold your laundry, do your own dishwasher, put away your/your kids’ toys, etc, unless you just want to have a clean house for one day per week.

[simultsop]

Isn't the plan of automation to let humans free at any cost? Like it happened with computers and relief from bureaucracy. First printers costed 20k, still there are 20k printers but way more powerful, the first series now are in homes under $100. It will take time to get cheap.

[nightski]

I don't think a rational market would want anything at "any" cost. Either the robot has to be cheaper, or better enough to justify the increased cost.

[newsclues]

Automation won’t make all humans free.

It will make it easier for some humans to free of interaction with other humans.

[bluGill]

Putting away toys is the hard part. Though as I get older my back is starting to demand help with some of the rest.