Is Silicon Valley Ready for Home Robots? Hello Robot Enters a New Phase - Zamin.uz
·7·Technology Hello Robot, a startup based in Martinez, California, has unveiled the fourth generation of its Stretch home assistant robot. Unlike many competitors in Silicon Valley, the company focuses on creating compact devices capable of providing pract...
Key takeaways
The most recent headlines show a surge of activity around commercial‑grade humanoid robots. At NVIDIA’s GTC event in Taipei in early June, the company unveiled an open‑source reference design built on the Isaac GR00T platform that pairs a Unitree H2 Plus humanoid body with NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor board featuring the new Blackwell GPU, along with Sharpa five‑fingered hands and a full suite of AI models and simulation tools; sales of the research‑focused system to labs such as Stanford and ETH Zurich are slated to begin later this year. NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang emphasized that “physical AI” could generate a multi‑trillion‑dollar market, and the partnership is intended to lower the barrier for embodied‑AI research. Unitree, the Chinese robot maker supplying the H2 Plus, is preparing an October launch of the upgraded H2 Plus and is pursuing a Shanghai STAR‑board IPO that could raise about 4.2 billion yuan, while reporting that over 40 % of its revenue already comes from overseas customers. In the United States, 1X Technologies has started full‑scale production of its NEO humanoid in Hayward, California, marketing the robot as quieter than a refrigerator for domestic environments, and London‑based Humanoid announced a joint proof‑of‑concept with Bosch aimed at scaling production. Fraunhofer IPA introduced a new benchmark suite for evaluating humanoid performance, underscoring the growing focus on real‑world manipulation rather than just locomotion, a point echoed by Columbia professor Yunzhu Li who warned that general‑purpose manipulation in fully unstructured settings remains a longer‑term challenge. China continues to dominate shipments, with analysts projecting roughly 28 000 units shipped in 2026—up from 13 000 in 2025—and forecasts that global advanced‑robot deliveries could exceed one million per year by the early 2030s, driven by state support and rapidly falling prices.
·7·Technology
Hello Robot, a startup based in Martinez, California, has unveiled the fourth generation of its Stretch home assistant robot. Unlike many competitors in Silicon Valley, the company focuses on creating compact devices capable of providing practical assistance in real households, rather than complex humanoid robots resembling humans. Stretch features a telescopic arm, a sensor-equipped head, and a wheeled platform, designed to operate outside laboratory conditions. This is reported by Techcrunch.com report. The company was founded in 2017 by former Google Robotics Director Aaron Edsinger and Georgia Institute of Technology professor Charlie Kemp. Hello Robot aims to collect real-world data necessary for training robots, leveraging recent advances in artificial intelligence. According to a Bullhound Capital report, the key advantage in robotics lies not only in intellectual property but also in the hours of work accumulated in the real world. One of those testing Stretch's capabilities in practice is investor Keith Platt. Paralyzed in 2021, Platt controls the robot via a voice app on his iPhone. With its help, he can independently drink a protein shake, put on his glasses, or brush his teeth. While such simple tasks previously took two hours, they are now completed in just a few minutes with the robot's assistance.
The Hello Robot team includes specialized therapists working to adapt the device to the needs of people with disabilities. Platt emphasizes that achieving independence and reducing reliance on others is mentally crucial not only for the patient but also for their caregivers. Currently, Stretch is one of the few projects that has moved beyond laboratory windows to start serving people in real homes.
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