Boston Dynamics shop: Spot Explorer

https://shop.bostondynamics.com/DefaultStore/spot?cclcl=en_US&pid=aDl6g000000XdpZCAS

by sekai • 6 years ago

216 215 6 years ago

shop.bostondynamics.com

maxwellito• 6 years ago

The FAQ has concerning points:

Are there limits to what I am allowed to do with Spot?
Spot should never be used to harm or intimidate any person or animal or for any illegal or ultra-hazardous purpose. Our warranty of Spot becomes void and we may disable some or all of its functionality upon any such use.

_should_

tartuffe78• 6 years ago

Unless a secret court rules we have to let you.

ipnon2• 6 years ago

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

newsbinator• 6 years ago

Easier said than parsed!

(As all Asimov's Robot stories pointed out)

informatimago2• 6 years ago

Asimov's laws are only good for a lifetime writing career in exploring their exceptions. Is there any Asimov story where the laws were applied strictly and successfully? I don't remember one.

jessaustin• 6 years ago

It's good that they have this language. My first thought was that some rich asshole would want to "release the hounds" on unwanted visitors, only with machine-gun-equipped deathbots rather than abused, hungry Dobermanns.

It may not be so good if this means they can actually monitor robot use in order to enforce this requirement?

ourmandave2• 6 years ago

Our warranty of Spot becomes void and we may disable some or all of its functionality upon any such use.

So Spots are connected back to Boston Dynamics (like Teslas to Tesla) and they can brick your device anytime?

What kind of metrics are they collecting?

DonHopkins7• 6 years ago

They don't brick them, they impound them.

For lesser violations they can make it temporarily play dead.

techlaw• 6 years ago

Selected Q/A from the 'SPOT PRIVACY NOTICE' [1].

Of interest is that access to the Performance Log is required at "license renewal time [...] before a new key will be issued."

I've not seen other info about their licensing terms but am curious to read those if somebody has a link to those details.

According to the Spot Privacy Notice, Performance Log includes: - Your robot’s serial number. - Information about usage such as how long the robot has been operated, how far it walked, how many times it fell, how often a particular API was used. - When key events like powering on or fault detection occurred. - Safety-related data such as collisions or falls. - Usage of the controller application. - High-level information about maps you collect, such as how many waypoints, how they’re connected, how well Spot understands where it is. - Details about communications loss events.

Q: Who will have access to my data? A: Access to your data will be limited to Boston Dynamics customer support and individuals related to improving the product.

Q: Under what circumstances is Spot data transmitted to Boston Dynamics? A: Service Logs: Only when explicitly sent by you as part of a service request. Performance Logs: Regularly and automatically, whenever the tablet is connected to the Internet. [emphasis added]

Q: Does Boston Dynamics retain my data? A: Service Logs: Deleted when a service ticket is resolved. Performance Logs: Yes, this data is retained as long as it is necessary for performance improvements to Spot robots.

Q: What if I don’t use the tablet or Android app with Spot? A: If you have a Spot Explorer we’ll ask you for your Performance Log at license renewal time. At that point you will have to use Spot’s Android App to transfer the log before a new key will be issued. [emphasis added]

Q: Does Spot require Internet access? A: No. In order to facilitate transmission of diagnostic data we do require you to periodically connect your tablet to the robot, which automatically transfers the data from the robot, and then connect that tablet to the Internet.

[1] https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot/privacy-notice

paxys3• 6 years ago

Like how iTunes can't be used to develop nuclear weapons.

swiley• 6 years ago

I wonder what the software looks like. Is it open source? What kind of network connectivity does it need? What kind of training is needed to program the robot?

The price feels low to me, people pay more for cars.

bhhaskin• 6 years ago

Adam Savage over on Tested does a bit of a review of one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-PdPtqw78k

jcims• 6 years ago

Dunno, anyone from Unitree in here that can comment? :P

warent• 6 years ago

I bet we'll see this appear in some Hollywood films!

paxys3• 6 years ago

Nah, it's still going to be a lot easier to animate a robot rather than train this one do what you want.

dllthomas2• 6 years ago

It's harder to get actors to respond realistically to an animated robot than a physical one. Depending on what you want, I could well see this being cheaper and easier. At the limit, consider if you only need stuff it can do out of box, and BD will lend you one for promotional purposes or you can resell it with minimal depreciation.

TheGallopedHigh• 6 years ago

Then why would Disney pile money into an acrobatic robot? I think there must be a use case there somewhere

danbmil99• 6 years ago

The recent War of the Worlds reboot uses Boston Dynamic robots as the main protagonists

computerfriend• 6 years ago

U.S. sales only. International customers, contact sales to inquire about lease options.

Not any business.

sterlind• 6 years ago

That may be due to ITAR.

edm0nd• 6 years ago

I'm sure there is already a Chinese made clone available that used stolen IP.

DonHopkins7• 6 years ago

Dammit, there's a limit on the number of them you can purchase online at once.

    Only two robots may be purchased through the online store.
    Please request a quote to get in contact with a sales representative.

    Spot® Explorer
    Quantity: 101
    Price $74,500.00
    Total $7,524,500.00

Do they come painted in Dalmatian? How much is delivery? Do they deliver themselves?

geoelectric3• 6 years ago

Well, of course they have a Spot check.

m4633• 6 years ago

it's called "Inspection" and costs $29,750.00 :)

tartoran• 6 years ago

Obviously Disney owns copyright for ordering exactly 101.

penagwin2• 6 years ago

These are really expensive, so I think chances are if you need more than 2 then they want to make sure you get a demo with engineers, probably custom contracts/pricing, etc. Probably a fraud prevention thing too given how much money it is.

abledon2• 6 years ago

pay 500$ more and have it hand painted by some starving artists in NYC

def8cefe2• 6 years ago

Those are gonna be some expensive coats.

systemvoltage6• 6 years ago

This comment belongs on Reddit, not here.

blaser-waffle3• 6 years ago

Explain

exolymph• 6 years ago

Counterpoint: No.

HoveringOrb• 6 years ago

OP's humor might actually be too subtle for Reddit these days. They're busy recycling the same Black Mirror references.

geoelectric3• 6 years ago

This comment is specifically off-topic, per the rules. I don't, however, see jokes in comments mentioned.

Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zaroth3• 6 years ago

Threads like these make me wish for dang’s blessed “We’ve detached this thread...” comment.

hugofloss• 6 years ago

Looks very cool, but what would be common use cases for this robot? Could it carry bags to base camp on everest?

s_dev2• 6 years ago

Moving building materials "the last mile" in places like Swiss mountains where they currently hire helicopters to move such materials.

teej• 6 years ago

Max payload is only 31lbs unfortunately

DonHopkins7• 6 years ago

They make great best friends for anthropomorphic robots.

paxys3• 6 years ago

This model isn't meant for carrying things. The product page mentions "industrial inspection" and "entertainment", whatever that means.

freeone3000• 6 years ago

Entertainment, aka "we don't know we just think it's cool"

Shivetya• 6 years ago

going with outside novelty anywhere you need to see but have no other method to safely navigate it? I could see rescue groups experimenting with them.

if not simply going through a building looking for people or stuff that should not be there.

jonas21• 6 years ago

Going for a walk, billionaire-style?

https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/180319-b...

lgl4• 6 years ago

The only way this picture could get any better was if the house in the background was exploding.

toomuchtodo2• 6 years ago

Physical security. On a five year depreciation schedule, even assuming multiple units for continuity, you’re ahead of labor costs in certain areas.

I could also see Royal Caribbean buying them as novelties to go along with their robotic bartenders on their oasis class ships.

nwienert• 6 years ago

Except someone would try to steal/destroy it and it couldn’t do anything, so not really. Maybe in a decade or two.

0xffff23• 6 years ago

Did Royal Caribbean ever get the robotic bartenders to actually work? When I got to see one in action several years ago it spent far more time either outright down or in a half broken state where it messed up orders than it did actually working. Not to mention it being much slower than a human bartender when it was operational.

dbcurtis• 6 years ago

There is a European company with a similar robot (sorry, can't remember the name, but I have seen the robot up close). They actually have a business model! (BD's business model seems to be asking the DOD for more research funds....)

Anyway, this other company leases them for plant inspections -- think large chemical processing plant inspections. Currently, some person in a hard-hat wanders around the plant looking at gauges and sniffing for leaks every hour. Robot can carry a back-pack full of gas sensors, and a camera that can look at a 25-year-old gauge and feed computer vision OCR software that turns that into a data log.

Edit: My brain woke up. Here it is: https://www.anybotics.com/anymal-legged-robot/

ourmandave2• 6 years ago

Bolt on a towing winch to pull people from wells and you could replace Lassie.

glitcher• 6 years ago

Wow, if you want all the add-on accessories and the service plan it can cost over $50k more!

pj_mukh• 6 years ago

Does anyone have any case studies on these being used in an Enterprise Setting?

teh_klev2• 6 years ago

Probably old news but Boston Dynamics' "dog" products were the inspiration for the killer robot dogs in the "Metalhead" Black Mirror episode:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalhead_(Black_Mirror)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3GM299orc

It doesn't often happen but that episode genuinely gave me the heebies.

rusk• 6 years ago

I just recently came to realise it was probably partly influenced by his experiences trying to creep around the house without waking his kids ;-)

TeMPOraL• 6 years ago

Also for the 2019 War of the Worlds TV series.

blaser-waffle3• 6 years ago

Man that episode was spooky. Good stuff though.

Some of the autonomous micro drone stuff is also pretty scary. I think there is a (fake) youtube vid about them that's pretty scary.

Baeocystin• 6 years ago

Here's the video you're referencing. And yes, it is chilling in its utter believability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM

mamurphy• 6 years ago

That reminded me of the https://autonomousweapons.org short horror film, Slaugherbots[0].

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA

teh_klev2• 6 years ago

That's very well done, and not unimaginable either.

oars• 6 years ago

Thank you for sharing, that was fantastic.

tmaly• 6 years ago

I would like a version of their biped robot

aerophilic2• 6 years ago

From the specs: BATTERY

Battery capacity = 605 Wh

Average runtime (no payload) = 90 mins Recharge time = 120 mins

So you basically have to buy ~4 batteries ($4620 each) to get a 9 hour work day out of them...

thebiss• 6 years ago

What makes their batteries 20x more expensive? EV batteries were $176/kWh back in 2018.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-b...

vorpalhex3• 6 years ago

I would hazard a guess of proprietary form factor and handling needs since these aren't mounted in a car chassis, combined with low production volumes initially.

kevin_thibedeau• 6 years ago

Cheap compared to the $1200 Ethernet port.

hobofan• 6 years ago

a 9 hour work day out of them

A _continous_ 9 hour work day. You could alternatively just program it for a 24 hour work cycle, and get the same 9 hour work day on a single battery in segments instead.

EDIT: Nevermind. I assumed that it had the capabilities to dock and charge by itself (just like any robot vacuum does), but apparently it doesn't.

s1artibartfast• 6 years ago

How do you figure 9 hours? 3 batteries should be a 24 hour day if you are charging 2 and running 1

aerophilic2• 6 years ago

You might get away with 3 (depending on load), but then you would need an additional charger ($1360 each). But there was a reason I use the ~ symbol =). Personally if I were doing this I would get more chargers, but it is really up to the use case. Either way, assuming 5,000 hours/year, you are looking around $20-30/hour of effective cost (depending on what you count for “everything else)

bogwog• 6 years ago

Could a grown man ride it like a horse? This is such a cool, unknown, yet obvious technology but I have no idea what I would use it for. Rescuing people from volcanos? Bringing you a beer? Robot dog races or fights? This is obviously designed for industrial and rescue uses, but I think it could be most successful in the entertainment industry (don't know how ethical that would be though)

boston_sre87• 6 years ago

PAYLOADS

Max weight = 14 kg total (30.9 lbs) Mounting area = 850 mm (L) x 240 mm (W) x 270m m (H) Mounting interface = M5 T-slot rails Connector = DB25 (2 ports) Power supply = Unregulated DC 35-58.8V, 150W per port Integration = Available software API and hardware interface control documentation

jefftk2• 6 years ago

No: "Max weight = 14 kg total (30.9 lbs)"

https://shop.bostondynamics.com/DefaultStore/spot?cclcl=en_U...

jyounker• 6 years ago

However, a very small child can ride it. :)

jdhn• 6 years ago

Get 4 or 6 of these, hook it up to a sled with wheels, and you have your own robotic dogsledding team.

jpindar• 6 years ago

They did that with some Big Dogs, there's a video.

musingsole• 6 years ago

Some comments here show the max payload is too low. But I've had the same thoughts, so what does it take to scale Spot to the size/max payload of a horse?

lgl4• 6 years ago

I guess more importantly, when an AT-AT [0] sized one?

[0] https://www.starwars.com/databank/at-at-walker/

zokier• 6 years ago

Like BigDog? Not quite horse capacity, but still rideable in terms of load, although I don't know if it would screw up the balance

Ajedi32• 6 years ago

As others have said you can't directly ride it (the max payload is too low), but Adam Savage did manage to hook it up to a rickshaw and ride it that way: https://youtu.be/zyaocKS3sfg?t=1358

leovander• 6 years ago

Not as a horse, but a rickshaw.

"Adam Savage's Spot Robot Rickshaw Carriage!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyaocKS3sfg

abledon2• 6 years ago

You'd need 4 -5 of them holding up a palanquin that you sit on.

sibling comment said max weight is 30.9 lbs per SPOT. So go on a diet, do some ascetic yoga, get down to 150 lbs or so. and then get 4-5 of them holding up your royal vessel.

yellowapple5• 6 years ago

Seems like it'd be more effective to integrate a single beefier spot into the palanquin itself: https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Diamond_Palanquins

dekhn• 6 years ago

One of the strangest things I've ever seen was Boston Dynamics doing a Spot demo at a VC summer party at the same time somebody was demoing their next-gen Twitch-streaming drone that could circle around an object (Spot). Spot strutted about while the drone flew around it and streamed the strut to the internet.

All the VCs were rushing to stream themselves while I was thinking "am I seeing the next-gen war technology?"

Cactus2018• 6 years ago

I was thinking "am I seeing the next-gen war technology?"

Did you see any coverage of Robomasters?

Some light starter material from The Verge in 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECr4zgK6cPA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboMaster

> RoboMaster is an annual intercollegiate robot competition held in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, founded and hosted by the drone tech giant DJI. First started in 2015, it is the brainchild of DJI's founder and CEO Frank Wang, and jointly sponsored by the Communist Youth League Central Committee, the All-China Students' Federation (ACSF) and the Shenzhen City Government. It is the first shooting sport-style robotics competition in China.

schoen• 6 years ago

There are a bunch of these competitions around the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_combat

(It looks like RoboMaster is bigger in terms of the number of participants and spectators.)

swimfar• 6 years ago

There are a number of these types of collegiate competitions in China. A student was telling me about one he was working on where you had to optimize missile trajectories to avoid radar detection.

jpm_sd2• 6 years ago

The User Guide is a fun read too. Lots of things I hadn't thought about:

- pinch points and other safe handling concerns

- it cannot perceive glass windows or the edge of a cliff

- "entertainment" is mentioned as a possible application, but you should not operate it near pets or children

https://www.bostondynamics.com/sites/default/files/inline-fi...

jonathanstrange• 6 years ago

"Spot is not certified safe for in-home use or intended for use near children or others who may not appreciate the hazards associated with its operation."

joshvm• 6 years ago

Recommending there to be no glass in the environment makes sense for liability, but I would have thought a few ultrasound detectors would be sufficient for gross collision avoidance e.g. to avoid walking into a pane. Similarly forward/down-looking sensors should be able to detect ground plane discontinuities. I guess the stereo isn't robust enough to do that reliably.

11thEarlOfMar• 6 years ago

Wow, cliff detection... Anybots had that same limitation in 2009. Would have thought it'd be solved by now, particularly in a $70k robobt.

RandallBrown• 6 years ago

My Roomba has cliff detection, but it's probably easier to do in a rolling robot that's right next to the ground.

Animats3• 6 years ago

Yes, that surprised me, too. Cliff detection isn't that hard. They seem to have cameras in the nose area that are positioned to see whether there's a walkable surface ahead. The basic vision system is cameras with IR projection of a pattern, like the original Kinect. How can they do foot placement on stairs while unable to detect cliffs?

There's an optional LIDAR vaguely mentioned in the instructions. No specs on field of view or range, though.

"Spot’s joints can pinch fingers and other body parts and entangle loose clothing, long hair, and jewelry. Only handle Spot when the motors are locked out or robot power is off. Fingers may break or get amputated if caught in joints while Spot’s motors are active." Were pinch points not considered during design?

Jogging/trotting is only available in "demo mode", and is listed as "less stable".

Boston Dynamics can do better than this. I was expecting full Big Dog capability in a smaller package. Maybe this is just the minimum viable product for a market test. If someone finds a use case for this robot, the next model should have those problems fixed.

m4633• 6 years ago

wow, I wonder if Tesla autopilot can detect when the bridge is up?

ogre_codes7• 6 years ago

So the problem they seem to be solving is slowly moving small things short distances across really rough terrain with a power source nearby. I don't see these flying off the shelves.

The bulk of everything else it does could probably be done better with a drone. The only big win for the dog-bot is the 31 pound carry capacity but... I'm not even sure how that is super useful.

vorpalhex3• 6 years ago

Indoor environments where a flying creature is a real hazard, especially since you can't have a drone above people (typically) but you can have a dog robot walking around as long as it's not so slow that it blocks stairs/doorways.

Spot with no load (or minimal load) seems to be pretty fast? I could imagine it could do useful checks around a construction area or an empty building and alert someone if something is off - "Hey, operator, a door was opened and now it's closed."

Obviously it's early tech, we're going to see first wave adopters who have an appetite for experimentation.

ogre_codes7• 6 years ago

Wheeled robots already dominate indoor environments. They cost a tiny fraction of what this costs, have better endurance, and are safer.

abraxas• 6 years ago

I think it's still best suited to be a good research vehicle for interesting AI work.

Retric3• 6 years ago

Flying drones have major endurance issues, especially if they need to carry anything beyond an extra battery. This can last 90 minutes on a 4.2 kg battery and presumably extend that to 4.5 hours at the cost of ~60% carrying capacity. Drones also have trouble applying forces do do stuff like open doors.

75k seems like a much bugger issue in terms of general use, but that can probably drop a lot over time.

ogre_codes7• 6 years ago

Flying drones have major endurance issues

What's the point of lasting 3 times longer if you are moving 5-10 times slower? Even if you double the endurance of the Spot, you are still covering the same amount of ground that a much more affordable drone could cover.

elil17• 6 years ago

I’m pretty sure the main use is observing dangerous environments like mines, places with toxic waste, and oil rigs. The payload will usually be used for sensors or a door opening device, not to transport cargo.

ogre_codes7• 6 years ago

observing dangerous environments like mines, places with toxic waste, and oil rigs.

This could be a good use. Mines in particular where drones would be impractical. I'm not so sure about oil rigs, while Spot would be great on the stairs/ terrain, it has trouble with seeing the edge of cliffs and might well march right off into the ocean.

Probably the biggest advantage would be the ability to take samples or hold some kind of special equipment.

DonnyV• 6 years ago

Thats impressive, it runs for 90 min (no payload).

dllthomas2• 6 years ago

See Spot run!

bawana• 6 years ago

So amazon could load 10 of these in a self driving truck and do same day/all night delivery 24/7. They'd only need to figure out a way to get the dogs to pick up and drop the packages. The truck could leave the 'procurement center' loaded with all the packages and make the rounds. The dogs could recharge whenever they return to the truck.

dane-pgp• 6 years ago

That's an incredible idea, and the question isn't "What's the lowest hourly wage they could pay someone across the internet to control one of these dogs?" but "How much would people be willing to pay for the fun of completing 'missions' where they guide the dog to a customer's front door and back?"

Invictus0• 6 years ago

Even that is not a recurring cost if you can get the dog to "remember" the path taken with GPS coordinates.

throwaway0a5e• 6 years ago

You'll likely see these things augmenting expensive skilled employees by carrying their engine driven welders and air compressors around job-sites before you see them doing low margin delivery work. Most technology moves from high margin industries (where the cost per operating hour of an employee is higher and therefore easier to beat) to low margin industries.

0xffff23• 6 years ago

At 30lb payload, it's not carrying any welder or compressor I've ever worked with. More like fetching a socket from the toolbox that's not quite in reach, but to accomplish those sorts of small and somewhat random tasks is going to require quite a bit more NLP than we've been able to do so far.

lgl4• 6 years ago

Or get a Chinese lookalike for, supposedly, less that $10000 [0] [1] [2]

[0] https://youtu.be/2H3dzZEi-qw

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/unitree-new-robot-dog-compar...

[2] http://www.unitree.cc/product/

Aunche3• 6 years ago

The A1 weighs about 26 pounds

That's about 1/7 the weight of Spot, so ~7x the cost seems about right.

tlb3• 6 years ago

Spot weighs 32.5 kg (71.7 lbs) according to https://shop.bostondynamics.com/DefaultStore/spot

So the A1 is 36% of Spot's weight.

lgl4• 6 years ago

Probably also features the plasticky hollow frail feeling of most chinese knockoffs. Still, if anybody wants to buy 7 of these and pit them against 1 Spot, I'd watch that :)

hckr_news• 6 years ago

Cheaper because it spies on you

devalgo3• 6 years ago

So outside of mounting a gun on it or doing basic industrial inspections it's really just a $74,500 toy right?

jefft2552• 6 years ago

For researchers like me it’s an easy way to get a legged robot that just works for fairly cheap. One can then focus on perception/decision/control etc. without being a mechanical engineer.

devalgo3• 6 years ago

Well they have $20,000+ addons for better Lidar range, on device compute etc. Doesn't seem all that cheap to do interesting things..

tlb3• 6 years ago

So outside of organizing your recipe collection, this Apple ][ is just a $2000 toy, right?

-- some pundit in 1977, probably

devalgo3• 6 years ago

Not sure this take feels right but it doesn't really feel sufficient to say "this time is different" either. It's pretty easy to come up with dozens of military based use cases but really difficult to find commercial ones. Possible use cases for say delivery still rely on human drivers (in delivery vans) or tele-operators for example so it's not clear there's a business case for using them.

0xffff23• 6 years ago

This seems like the mother of all selection biases to me. Of course you remember the Apple ][ because it was one of the first products in what became a wildly successful market. How many flying car prototypes do you remember? There have been several, and a whole new batch of electric versions are being designed right now, but so far people have been quite rightly skeptical of that product for the last 70+ years.

jb775• 6 years ago

I wonder what the employee discount is

CWuestefeld• 6 years ago

My niece works with them. They gave her one (or, presumably, loaned it to her).

MarcScott• 6 years ago

Why does their video only show 3D animated renderings? I want to see the actual robot, not some Cinema 4D / After Effects mock-up.

sekai2• 6 years ago

Check out this video, covers some of the stuff it can do and how it works: https://youtu.be/iBt2aTjCNmI

rmason2• 6 years ago

I remember watching the price of laser printers drop. I was in a computer store once and I was examining a $10,000 model once. A salesman approached and I told him once the price drops below $1500 I am getting one. He actually laughed at me and a nearby customer weighed in I'd be waiting for a lifetime or more.

Truth is I think it was three or four years before I bought a $1495 LaserJet, still have it in fact. So when Spot drops to $7500 I am getting one, just to freak out my neighbors!

smnrchrds• 6 years ago

By the time the price drops to $7500, it would be common enough that no one would get freaked out.

lenwood• 6 years ago

Well it depends on what rmason plans to do with it.

markkanof• 6 years ago

I know what your saying, but I think the more of these are around the more freaked out I'm going to be.

imron• 6 years ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-52619568/coronavirus-...

sekai2• 6 years ago

Pretty good for a thing that can open doors or fetch a beer!

_bxg1• 6 years ago

And these days it's sometimes cheaper to buy a whole new printer than it is to refill the ink.

ravedave5• 6 years ago

When I worked at best buy in early college I remember at $15,000 50 inch LCD. Hung there for like a year until a model half the price replaced it and actually started selling.

cookingrobot• 6 years ago

I saw an ad for a knockoff on Facebook today for $12,728 so it’s getting close. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33009340574.html

thinkloop2• 6 years ago

I'll just leave this here: https://youtu.be/y3RIHnK0_NE

google + boston dynamics = skynet :p

jpm_sd2• 6 years ago

1) That's a fake video, made by a visual effects company.

2) Google already bought Boston Dynamics, realized they had no idea what they were doing, and sold Boston Dynamics to another large, wealthy, easily confused organization (SoftBank).

thinkloop2• 6 years ago

I know it's cgi, their channel is pretty cool, check out Bohemian Rhapsody: https://youtu.be/PJO7bcRVPvI

Had no idea about Google, seems like the perfect moonshot, wonder what they were expecting.

betimsl• 6 years ago

This is daylight robbery.

jansan• 6 years ago

If you consider that owning a real dog costs roughly 30000$ for 10 years, this isn't that expensive. Of course, the price will drop considerably within the next few years and AI will improve a lot, so in 15 years it may be really common to own a robot dog. Real dogs will be for rich people.

The snake scene of the original Bladerunner movie always struck me as prophetic, where Deckard asks if the snake is real and Zhora replies: "Of course it's not real. You think I would be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?"

https://youtu.be/rmpfavbc7PE?t=116 (slight nipple warning)

motohagiography• 6 years ago

Use cases I could think of would include:

- litter collection in parks, beaches, and ravines

- job site tool delivery / mobile tool caddie

- mobile vending at music festivals if those ever happen again

- archaeological / mineral exploration

- wildlife conservation and monitoring

- strawberry, tomato and other low to the ground fruit picking

The quadruped cases are different from the bipedal cases.

The surveillance and security use cases aren't that interesting because to me those use cases are like the woodworking and electronics equivalents of clocks and ashtrays. You could train it to avoid people, and just be a wandering background sensor array for things like volatile chemicals in airport and public transport settings, etc.

Such interesting times we live in.

totalZero4• 6 years ago

All of those tasks seem much cheaper to accomplish with people.

Also I'd love to meet a workman who would prefer to have a $75k caddy, rather than simply buying $25k worth of new tools and getting up himself to go grab them whenever needed.

The price point matters.

jachee2• 6 years ago

As I understand/perceive it, current price point is aimed at R&D of use cases for when that price inevitably drops.

DonHopkins7• 6 years ago

Mount an iPad clamp and dock on it, and Apple could up-sell it as a walking adjustable iPad stand. They already sell a $1000 screen stand.

zaroth3• 6 years ago

You got your top rated comment up-thread, now you're just double dipping!

jryle70• 6 years ago

It has been spotted at Spacex's Boca Chica location that's building Starship

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/haiwhj/boston_dynam...

lurquer2• 6 years ago

The technology is great. But, real honestly, can it do anything that a well-trained German shepherd can't?

Granted it's a hassle maintaining a kennel of well-trained dogs, plus medical, food, etc.

But, for $75k if I had some specific use for a quadruped, I think I'd look into getting a dog.

neotriple• 6 years ago

I mean...you can extrapolate this line of thinking to any piece of technology...

lurquer2• 6 years ago

Well, some technology can't be replicated by living creatures... I could hire 10,000 book-keepers and they still wouldn't be as fast or as accurate at handling my company's finances than an old pirated copy of Quickbooks.

On the other hand, would I spend $7,000 on a state of the art sex doll? I'd probably just head to the bar, spend $50 or so on drinks, and take home a female human.

But, I'm cheap...

Some will spend the $75k to have an automated quadruped robot fetch them their sex doll. As for me, I'll just bring my little chihuahua to the bar, use him to flirt with some girl, and head home with the dog, the girl, and some beer all for much less than $75k.

totalZero4• 6 years ago

These things are kind of useless in the real world.

lucb1e3• 6 years ago

If you had read the thread, at least half the comments (many of which posted hours before you) say exactly that (like every time when someone says "unpopular opinion but..."), and without any sort of argumentation your comment doesn't really tell anyone anything.

totalZero4• 6 years ago

Judging by the other comments ("Finally! Something to retrieve a socket wrench from all the way across the room!"), my view that this robot is utterly useless is indeed an unpopular opinion. This is HN and people love the "oh look this is so tech" kind of story. The whole startup scene is about it. I'm not seeing a ton of other people who said the same thing prior to my comment, but to placate you I edited my comment to remove the "unpopular" part. I would ask that you reply to what I say, rather than the specific wording. If I may point it out, your comment critiqued my choice of words while totally ignoring the point I stated.

The argument is: these things are useless in the real world.

This argument is falsifiable: come up with a use case for this robot that is real-world reasonable given the price point and other practical considerations.

If BD is charging $75k for a product that has been in development im one form or another for 10+ years, it seems reasonable that the burden is on BD to prove it's a useful product.

Judging by the history of the product, it seems clear that it's a novelty item. The DoD turned its back on the very loud BigDog, and Google handed BD off to Softbank when they weren't able to answer the question, "so, how do we make money from selling this robot to consumers?"

You can buy three Ford pickup trucks, brand spanking new, for the price of one of these robots.

Boston Dynamics isn't exactly a company that makes products. They are a bunch of researchers who turn money into technology. That technology may involve impressive robotic motion, but not every impressive thing is useful to consumers.

There's a very strong sense among many robotics weenies at MIT that, if you make cool stuff, the DoD or some major corporation will eventually reward you with money that allows you to make more cool stuff. That sense is embodied by Boston Dynamics, in my mind. It doesn't translate to a useful product, whether intended for the consumer, commercial applications, or heavy industry.

And the dangerous bit is that this engineering philosophy of "find someone who will pay us to keep making cool useless stuff" only serves to create tools for the over-funded, which in our society means militaries, police, and other anti-human actors. So the most likely use of this product, if there is any use at all, is a destructive and anti-people application. But I don't think it's very useful even for those purposes, because of price, fragility, need to recharge, light payload, etc.

Be honest. Can you think of any specific application where this product is better than something else (including human labor) that can be bought for $75k?

tpmx• 6 years ago

Does anyone know what kind of motor/drive Spot uses? How do they get that precision/torque/speed? Brushless motors + planetary gears + high res optical/magnetic encoders + software for backlash compensation?

azangru• 6 years ago

Someone should tell their web team not to put 25MB png images as product previews :-)

(https://shop.bostondynamics.com/DefaultStore/ccrz__ProductLi..., Spot Enterprise column)

yellowapple5• 6 years ago

Okay, I get they need to amortize R&D, but $1275 for a hunk of plastic with two ports and some wires coming out of it? Did they fill it with diamonds or something? Very curious about the BOM on that, given that it looks like it costs less than a dollar to make.

leafmeal• 6 years ago

I guess if you're already paying $70k for Spot, the adapter's price is negligible.

yellowapple5• 6 years ago

I guess. It still makes me wonder about the margins for other accessories (let alone Spot itself).

zaroth3• 6 years ago

I just love robots, and I’ve purchased a few, but I just never had the time to play around with trying to build my own so I’m a bit naive of what is state of the art and how quickly we can expect it to advance. Maybe when my son is a bit older I will get to build some with him.

I have a robot vacuum which actually does an Ok job on the first floor despite the software being extremely naive. I have a robot lawnmower which, after laying the guide wire, does an incredible job on a fairly complex half acre and was worth every penny, and also accomplishes its task with surprising naïveté.

So far the success of robots seems to be in finding ways to reduce a seemingly complex task into a random walk.

I dream of robots doing all sorts of helpful things. Big robots that help me move stuff around the house (and maybe even up the stairs?). Little robots that can unclog a drain. Ridiculous gyroscoping telescoping robots that scoot around the kitchen and put away the dishes from the dishwasher in perfect stacks way up on the highest shelf.

Specs say Spot weighs 70lbs and can hold 30lbs.

2:1 seems actually... not bad. What’s the chance the tech evolves to 1:1 in 10 years? Is weight to payload ratio even a reasonable metric?

I feel like the three big things are 1) degrees of freedom, 2) torque, 3) finesse.

I don’t really have a good grasp of how much the problem is breaking down at either the software or the hardware level where I’ve never seen a robot that could really do all 3, even if it was a totally preprogrammed hard-coded action.

SavageHenry• 6 years ago

the less-capable Unitree A1 quadruped is priced at <$10k

Boston Dynamics shop: Spot Explorer

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