The robot butler dream doesn’t have legs - The Verge

Humanoid robots will take to the catwalk at IFA this week to show us how far they’ve come. But after years of living with home robots, I think we’re chasing the wrong machine.

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by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

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LG’s CLOiD is a robot housekeeper on wheels, not legs. The company says it’s developing a robot foundation model by training hundreds of CLOiDs in home environments.

| Image: LG

Part Of Second, tech history has proven that precious few gadgets do multiple things well. We don’t need an expensive jack of all trades and master of none. At CES, I walked around the Las Vegas show floor with a bottle of laundry detergent, challenging every humanoid robot I met to open it. Not a single one could. I was repeatedly told it had to learn how to do it first.

Switchbot is another smart home company developing a robot housekeeper. Its Onero home robot will be at IFA this week, showing its skills.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge