The Futuristic Household

Robots are becoming increasingly common in American households. We’ll give you an overview of the future household.

Over half of all consumers say they expect to own a domestic robot within the next 10 years to perform a household chore. Although robots already perform many tasks, such as washing clothes, cleaning dishes and keeping our homes secure, they perform these tasks from within appliances we already own, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

According to a recent Realty Times article, further advances must be made in the following three areas for us to see robots in our homes as we traditionally think of them:

• Environmental sensing and interpretation technology. This technology gives machines the ability to recognize a multitude of things, from emotions to spoken commands.

• Raw processor power, which would run complex recognition, navigation and artificial software.

• Advanced motors, servos and mechanical actuators, combined with strong, lightweight and precise support components, which would create viable synthetic musculoskeletal structures capable of smooth, true-to-life motions.

You may now be picturing a humanoid robot, but the CEA says that bipedal motion is not necessarily a requirement of modern robotics. A robot is “more accurately defined as a mechanical device that can detect its environment, make decisions based on sensory information and execute a physical operation based on that decision.” According to that decision, many robots are already among us.

To get an idea of what distasteful household chores consumers might like robots to help with in the future, CEA polled a group of consumers. Among the least liked chores are tasks such as cleaning the kitchen, bathroom and dishes; dusting; doing the laundry; mowing; and vacuuming. We already get assistance from built-in robots for many of these chores, as many manufacturers already include automation in many appliances.

In the future, the CEA says that many homeowners would not balk at a high-cost robot if they already spend heavily on appliances that save them time. For now, robots cannot mimic the range of collective abilities necessary to perform some chores. According to the CEA, the next big advance will come in the form of purpose-built or specialized robots that are assigned groups of similar tasks. That being said, you may see the following robots invading the market over the next decade:

• GoferBot. This robot could collect a day’s clutter and store it in a large, onboard bin. It’s possible that the robot could even sort clothes by color and load them into the washer, later transferring them to the dryer. The robot would not have the dexterity to iron or fold laundry, however, but it might be able to collect dishes and load them into the dishwasher, collect trash and tidy up the house. “Fetch” could also carry messages and items around the house. According to the CEA, the value of this robot equates to $3,000, or three years’ worth of doing the dishes, laundry and trash at minimum wage. Regardless of the cost of the robot and the resulting time saved, just picture your friends’ faces when GoferBot takes their empty glass and fetches them a new drink during a party!

• ScrubBot. A smaller version of the robotic arms you see at car assembly factories, ScrubBot could be planted in the middle of the kitchen and scrub anything within reach – dishes, countertops, sinks and appliances – before it switches to a squeegee attachment to clean glass surfaces. The mop head attachment allows the robot to scrub the kitchen floor and also stand guard against intruders until it dries. Its talents are not just limited to the kitchen – picture this robot scrubbing away in the bathroom or garage. You could also assign ScrubBot the task of cleaning GoferBot’s storage bin! The cost to pay someone minimum wage to do these types of task would be $2,350 over three years, according to the CEA.

• Embedded SoftBot. Although you might typically picture a robot doing manual labor, a robot could also be assigned jobs such as turning lights on and off, opening and closing windows, adjusting temperatures and selecting music. Many robots are already doing these things in our homes! The cost of this service over three years is approximately $3,400 at minimum wage.

One of the more exciting robotic advances is the networking of many of these tasks. “A benefit of personal software agents is that each family member can have a virtual robot follow them around the house and even to the car and the office,” CEA explains. “When I move to the living room couch, the race highlights leave the computer screen and reappear on the television.” A robot could also adjust music, temperature and lighting to fit each family member’s preferred settings. This capability effectively turns your entire home into one big robot!

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