A real, physical robot there to help you with your home could be the star of CES, as LG previews what’s coming.
Easily one of the most hyped concepts for the future, actual robots that can help us with the frustrating parts of life, such as cleaning the house and sorting clothes — a robot butler and maid, if you will — is one of those things that has never quite happened.
If you were to ask this journalist what one gadget hasn’t been properly realised yet, it would be that: a device to help deal with the chores of every day life.
The good news it’s beginning to happen, what with robotic vacuums and robotic mops and robotic mowers and more, but not everything is quite there. No one has managed to build a robotic clothes sorting and folding system that takes less time than you can do it yourself, and there are still things you need to do.
Science fiction has long painted that assistant as a robotic maid, going back to the cartoons of The Jetsons, which took place in the year 2062, some mere 37 years away.
We still don’t have the flying cars promised in that show, but one aspect could be closer, as Rosie the Robot is set to be shown as an actual thing. For real life.
It’s a concept LG is talking about for CES with the “LG CLOiD”, an acronym LG hasn’t quite explained just yet, but we imagine will when CES kicks off in the beginning of next year.
Right now, the preview is of a robot designed to push forth LG’s vision of a “zero labour home”, an idea to reduce the burden of chores and let people focus on their lives.
Little is known about the hardware beyond that it will have two articulated arms with seven degrees of freedom and control powered by motors, five fingers on each hand, and a combination of display, camera, speaker, and sensors to allow you to talk to the LG CLOiD robot that we suspect we’ll eventually inadvertently shorten to “Clyde”.
The technology will come from LG’s Robotics Lab and appears to be a real thing focused on everyday tasks. That said, nothing has been mentioned about any legs just yet, so it could end up being robotic arms and brain on wheels or tracks, moving around the house like robotic cleaners do.
As with most things CES, particularly before the show opens, there is no word on whether the robot will even launch in Australia and for what price. But our guess is if and when Clyde (or Cloid) becomes a thing, it will not be cheap. The future rarely is.
