Steve Byrnes on Spectech Newsletter

I think robotics companies spend a ton on algorithms, and need to amortize that cost over their small volumes. But that’s not a marginal cost, so if volumes were to go way up, or if open-source algorithms were to get better, then we would want to ignore the part of the cost related to algorithm R&D. This leads into the idea that maybe we should be looking at the prices of teleoperated robots instead of autonomous ones. (The teleoperation UI takes R&D too, so it’s still an overestimate, but probably by less.) So, I tried to look into teleoperated robot prices a year or two ago. One thing I found was the "Ugo" — https://spectrum.ieee.org/remotely-operated-home-robot-can-do-your-laundry — which might or might not be vaporware, but they mention a price point below $10/day. I also found the much more hardcore "Sarcos Guardian XT" — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4urGVpy5HiA — which is possibly discontinued and never had transparent pricing, but I found a site that mentioned that you lease it for $5K/month. (And it does have dexterous hands, IIUC.) That's comparable to your higher-end numbers, but I think it should be rounded way down because I imagine that they were selling tiny volumes, and I think also designing them for great strength and ruggedness in extreme environments (e.g. high temperatures). Also, individual humans can make pretty cool mechanical hands! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kixS5Sy0F9s . I doubt the guy spent more than $1000 on those parts, right? (Could be wrong.) We can chat about the extent to which this is relevant / analogous—I’m not too sure, I’m kinda confused about what that guy did exactly and how it works. Whatever it is, it looks cool though!