Home help tells success story
The evolution of robot manufacturer UBTech is an updated Chinese version of the classic Silicon Valley story, says its co-founder and executive director, Goti Deng,
The company identified mobile social robots as the next-generation tech field and raced to produce a working product while fighting for capital, mind share and distribution.
It's not enough to be in a hot industry, Deng says. "You have to be good in order to get attention, help and resources," he says. The company spent years burning through capital while perfecting its servos, the miniature devices that control the movements of a robotic joint.
Today, the company produces a humanoid robot series, the Alpha 1S and the Alpha 2, 40-centimetre-tall robots that can be controlled by software app (the 1S) or by voice. The Jimu series is also a programmable robotics kit that features snap-in design parts that children can use to build their own robots.
Working in an emerging field is a challenge because the company must work to reduce prices while teaching consumers about a new product category.
"It's like the drone market, five years ago, when products were available but expensive," Deng says. "We are creating the consumer market for play robots. We educate people to understand what a robot is and what it can do."
Market exposure is an important part of that process. "When we have our global launch in the Apple App store in July, people will know that robots are coming to our lives," Deng adds. Jimu robots will be in Apple's flagship retail stores this summer, he reveals.
UBTech's goal is to combine the usefulness of mobile phone apps with the humanoid robot form, which is why the Alpha 2 runs on Android and uses speech recognition to interact with its owner.
"We consider them to be a family companion, so if a kid says he wants to listen to a story, Alpha will do that," Deng says. Downloadable apps will add functionality, everything from changing the television channel to teaching English.
From a business perspective, UBTech is trying to straddle the worlds of hardware, services and software, as Apple does.
The key for UBTech is to show consumers that household robots are useful now, even if they are not yet the automated butlers of science fiction.
"We teach people that household robots are not just for making coffee or doing your laundry. That's 15 years away," Deng says.