Domestic Robots Today

Domestic robots are poised to take over the household help market. Don't stop doing your chores or fire your cleaning lady, but be aware that robots are already in the business of helping with the tasks of daily life. Rapidly approaching the humanoids of 1950's science fiction, robots may soon put cleaning ladies everywhere out of business.

STAGE ONE

Robots have been quietly positioning themselves in the help-at-home market for years. The programmable coffee maker providing fresh morning coffee is an early robot that even turns itself off if ignored. Anything that can be programmed to do a chore, doesn't require our presence, and responds to environmental conditions can be considered a simple robot. It doesn't move about or interact with us. It just follows orders and minds its own business.

But this changed with the introduction of interactive household robots. The microwave oven tells us when food is cooked and, if we don't remove food promptly, it continues to beep, refusing to stop until we take some action to quiet it, only then assuming a satisfied silence. The coffee maker and microwave are both considered stage one robots, stationary helpers with interactive "smart features."

STAGE TWO

Next came interactive second stage mobile bots. The Roomba vacuum from high tech player iRobot was quickly followed by the Scooba mop, Verro pool cleaner and Looj gutter cleaner. We even have Nanda-Clocky, an alarm clock that runs away while ringing so we must get up, chase it and catch it to make it stop.

Rated by Forbes Magazine in 2008 as "the highest-ranking Fast Tech newcomer this year," iRobot leads the pack in stage two robot sales. Its remarkable growth shows just how hungry consumers are for affordable help to fit their schedules. Toyota created a robotics division in 2005 just to grab its share of this lucrative market.

STAGE THREE

Stage three bots feature advanced interaction capabilities in addition to mobility. In late 2008 Hong Kong's WowWee introduced Rovio, a roving bot to perform live surveillance of our homes and allowing us to control its movements remotely from any web browser. We can set Rovio to patrol the house and monitor what's going on in our absence. If Rovio detects an intruder we can call police, or order the intruder to leave using Rovio's microphone. Rovio is the house sitter who is always on the job.

STAGE FOUR

Bots were introduced in Japanese nursing homes in 2007 to amuse residents and provide company but the residents quickly tired of them. What the elderly really want are robots who will perform the tasks they can no longer perform for themselves, servant robots to help them live on their own.

That would be fourth stage humanoid bots with arms, hands and fingers to manipulate objects plus an ability to sense and respond to the environment. Such robots have already been introduced and are ready and willing to replace household servants, finally offering a solution to the problem that "good help is hard to find."

Robots can now respond to vocal commands or gestures and move independently around a living space, watering plants, letting the cat out, operating kitchen appliances, even making toast (as well as serving it) and feeding pets. Because the elderly will represent the largest market segment in coming years, developers anticipate a huge demand for servant robots.

The only question is whether Domestic robots will someday replace our mates. For the moment, husbands and wives may not have cause to fear being replaced by a robot but soon, who knows? Perhaps we should be nicer to our partners! It may become possible to buy a robotic facsimile of our ideal partner, designed and equipped so effectively that we forget it's a bot.