Anki's 'Vector' Home Robot Now Available for Purchase

Think of Anki as a baby, learning and growing into a mature robotics company, I believe he’s not talking about Vector exclusively growing but the company as a whole growing, learning and doing more with each new product it develops.

 

Does it "do" stairs?

 

A red flag goes up whenever someone tells me that I can trust them as part of their sales pitch. The "good robot" phrase is like a car salesman or mechanic saying they are "honest" or say "trust me" right up front.
Usually when you hear something like that they usually do the opposite to you. We learn this is a regular tactic in politics.
In today's vernacular that would be google or face book saying that protecting your private information is important to them and they will never sell your personal information.

 

Or spend the money on a gym membership and meet REAL people. Ha ha. Only joking. How D'you switch it on again? Oh yeah. Funny. Little robot Speaks. Like human. Me like humans.Just not to talk to directly.

 

Only in the sense that if won’t fall off over the edge of one. Which probably isn’t what you meant, but still blows my mind because I’m old.

 

In my opinion, anyone that seems to buy this kind of useless consumer crap, cannot complain about Trump withdrawing from the Paris climate accords.

Consumerism, and the jobs require to obtain the money to support this consumerism, is no doubt a large factor in the strain that we are putting on the environment.

Here is another mindless little toy to keep us amused for a few hours before it makes its way to the scrapheap. Good job Silicon Valley!

 

Preordered for my oldest for Christmas. Arrived on Tuesday. He’s gonna be stoked!

 

Suicidal Tendencies?
3... 2... 1...

 

I couldn’t resist and got one. It doesn’t have a practical purpose but it does a pretty good job of being a pet and I don’t regret the purchase. Think of it as a much cheaper Aibo.

 

I’d pick this up for my kid for Christmas if it was more like $150 and if she didn’t have a little brother who will end up breaking it. She loves robots. We both think it’s really endearing and expressive. I feel that toys like this are laying the groundwork for much more useful robots in the future. You have to start somewhere!

 

Not to mention the agonizingly slow response times.

 

Wanted to try, but the problem is most of the time my work desk is not clean enough like in the ads video. It'll likely only stay in its charging dock.

 

How does it get off your desk?

 

In what way?

 

Anki still make and sell 'ol Cozmo. There's a blue 2019 variant.

The main problem I have with Vector is that it's what Cozmo should have been from the start: Untethered autonomous (vs. Cozmo 'running' on iPhone).
Plus; Vector essentially benefits from re-using the Cozmo design/tooling, and can leverage a large part of the R&D.

I do like the Anki toys, but Cozmo doesn't meet the hype/expectations, and doesn't appear to deserve reciprocal bug fixes (they took out the self-charging)

 

I like the direction, but it is far too limited IMO. Also, the "smart speaker" feature is clunky requiring an extra step and has a noticeable delay. Alexa integration later in the year will be a necessary touch.

I like my Roomba, it can navigate my house, has a personality of sorts and cleans the floor. Perhaps if they put googly expressive eyes and a smart speaker into that my lizard brain and cold heart would be convinced it is a pet. But with things like this the marketing is always years ahead of the product. If only my little robot pal could fetch a pen or a fork, or nudge the TV remote over in an adorable way.
I do like the idea of a remote security guard filming things, keeping an eye on things.

 

Sounds like a perfect description of one of my old Girlfriends!

 

I'd like a companion to my roomba. Something like the old 'Big Trak' (Showing my age) that can trundle around and pick up obstructions from the floor that Roomba would otherwise eat - socks, slippers, that kind of thing.

 

What you're advocating is that unless something can be absolutely perfect, have every feature/ability, and have everything that it would need in the future, it's not worth doing at all.

As far as people needing an "artificial companion," what do you think your phone is?