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Comment by alsodumb | Hacker News Reader

Someone I know got it recently. If you're getting with the API and all the sensors it was close to 60k including customs and all of that.

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I would buy that today if the battery life was not abysmal. It is though; that is, at least for me, a far larger issue than all else. We cannot make laptops or phones work an entire day; robots/drones are measured in minutes.

What would you use it for that needs long battery life?

Shopping (which takes hours where I live), picking olives (it will take forever if you have to hop into the charger every 15 minutes), carrying my backpack on walks etc.

For shopping, surely the best robotic option are the various things the huge warehouses use, rather than havingthan a humanoid going around a store meant for humans?

Both the things that look like Roombas and all these: https://youtu.be/ssZ_8cqfBlE?si=9mCtiKKkk_N9Uk7z

No single consumer would buy all that, but the retailers can.

The most overall efficient method is robotizing the store and deliveries, yes. Which a consumer is powerless to do. But if a consumer can buy a generalized household robot, it becomes cheaper the more tasks it can perform, amortizing the cost over the total work done. A generalized household robot will become practical when it becomes cheaper than hiring staff or carers. There is most certainly a market with the elderly and others requiring assistance for a robot capable of going around stores meant for humans.

Are there not bigger constraints than battery life to a robot being able to do your shopping for you? It can't drive, public transit probably won't let a robot ride it, it can walk but it'll take forever. If it gets hit by a vehicle while walking, is the vehicle driver even committing a crime? Do you get reimbursed? Is the robot insurable? Do you owe the driver for damaging their car? If it gets to the store at all, will it be let in? If the store allows robots to enter, how is it supposed to pay? Robot's don't own bank accounts, so it has to prove it has the legal ability to use your account. Does this thing have Apple Pay and Google Pay integration built into it? You surely can't just give it cash or your physical credit card and hope that no one notices and steals it. Would a cashier even let a robot use a card that is supposed to be tied to a human identity? How do you authorize that? How does the robot prove it belongs to you?

For that matter, is there anything stopping a person from taking it and factory resetting? I tried to search for both "anti theft" and "theft" on that seller website and nothing came up. Maybe search is just broken for me? These are prominent features of mobile computing devices, cars, generally anything reasonably expensive you might intentionally or unintentionally leave in public unattended.

Apparently the site has an AI assistant, so I asked it. It said:

> Based on the provided context information from Unitree Technology, there is no specific mention of anti-theft features for the robots produced by Unitree Technology. The focus of the information is primarily on the various modes, functionalities, and control mechanisms of the robots, such as Zero Torque Mode, Damping Mode, Seating Mode, Ready Mode, Motion Mode, Standing Mode, Dance Mode, and Debug Mode. Additionally, the information covers services provided by the robots, including basic services, AI Sport Services, Normal Sport Services, Image Services, Network Services, and SLAM Services.

> Therefore, based on the available information, it can be concluded that there is no explicit reference to anti-theft features in the description of the robots produced by Unitree Technology. For detailed information on any anti-theft features or security measures, it is recommended to consult Unitree’s official resources or customer support for more specific details.

In typical AI fashion, that's an extremely verbose way of saying "no, there are no anti-theft features."

I think for most indoor household work they only really need enough to move from station to station. Once they are at the bed to fold clothes or in the kitchen washing dishes, they should be able to plug themselves in.

That’s way too limited for $60k though. I’d pay $20k even if it had to plug itself in for most jobs, assuming it was decent at cable management and could manage its own extension cord in other situations.

I would pay double that if it were capable of household/office/workshop reorganization and managing storage with a live inventory of where it put all the crap it cleans up. It’s not quite at the point where it would be a positive ROI financially (assuming $80k TCO over 5-10 years) but it’d make life a lot more convenient and lower the activation energy for a ton of hobbies.

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