Apple Explores Robotics Push For Smart Home Market, Analyst Says

Apple is developing robots for its smart home ecosystem, though mass production is unlikely to begin before 2028, according to widely reliable TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The project remains in early proof-of-concept testing, with Apple exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid designs, he wrote in a post on X.

The company is focusing on how users interact with robots rather than their physical appearance, prioritizing sensing hardware and software as core technologies, Kuo said. The tech giant has taken an unusual approach by publicly sharing some of its robotics research during this early stage, possibly to recruit talent, the analyst noted. The proof-of-concept phase, which precedes formal product development, serves as Apple's testing ground for product ideas and core technologies. Apple's foldable phone project is also currently in the proof-of-concept phase, he said.

Home robot

[backslashdot]

Can it fix me a sandwich or fetch me a drink AND not talk shit? If not, it's useless. So far, I haven't found any solution that can just do those simple tasks.

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[Narcocide]

Safely and correctly putting away laundry and dishes, and properly cleaning irregular surfaces would be great too.

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[CommunityMember]

Can it fix me a sandwich

You need to use the magic word: https://xkcd.com/149/ [xkcd.com]

Smart home is dead, IoT killed it

[sinij]

Home automation sounds interesting until the reality of IoT, screaming "Here's Johnny" breaks through the door.

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[Hentes]

Even if there were ways to self host, I don't want to spend what little time I have on Earth troubleshooting a lightswitch. Home automation will never save as much time as you will spend maintaining it.

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[kencurry]

Absolutely. We bought some expensive IOT light bulbs for front pouch last halloween. They are cool looking when you get the effects working. But they appear to need a stream of commands from your phone to enable effects. And of course, the app was a resource hog on my phone and would cause other apps to slow like crazy. That was a LIGHT BULB, cannot imagine debugging robotics constantly.

Home care robots

[CommunityMember]

Japan has been working for decades on home automation robots to help their elderly population be able to stay in their homes, and to assist in care facilities. The efforts are still experimental, and, mostly, not successful, but the work continues, and there is a huge market opportunity there.

Apple doesn't do motion control

[hdyoung]

Their entire history has been a trend towards complete solid state. It's down to the point where they're trying to engineer out very last mechanical switch on their signature product, because it's probably the part that fails the most.

Motion control is a totally different beast than their core business. They're not good at it.

If they want to do something in robotics, they're better off partnering with a robotics or motion control company. But, it's well-known that partnering with Apple is extremely ri

Running it through the Apple to Reality translator

[supremebob]

I'd a jaded long time tech news reader, when I see stories like "Apple is interested in home robotics" I tend to translate them to "Apple wants one of their competitors to release a home robot first".

That way, Apple can copy the parts of their design that worked, fix their design mistakes, and improve the ease of use on the product overall. Then they release their OWN home robot, and it becomes a far more successful and profitable product. It's been how Apple has run their business for the past 20+ years, a

Good

[PPH]

how users interact with robots rather than their physical appearance,

Robots with tentacles.

Just say no.

[Shakes Fist]

I was happy with my old x10 units but they were too expensive to bother replacing. Roomba was consistently a PITA. As an industrial automation engineer I have a 50yo central heating system that requires cleaning once a year, 20yo washing machine, 20yo dishwasher and... ummm... that's it. I don't want to be tweaking/flashing/updating/de-bugging anything at home. I definitely do not want apps running things and abhor the idea of having a multitude of "things" sending my data over the net - I won't even let my