Having your floors swept and washing sorted by robots may no longer be the product of science fiction, as new research reveals that over 1 in 10 American homes will have a housekeeping robot by the year 2020.
In 2016, global unit shipments of robot housekeepers reached an impressive 15.7 million, however new findings by Juniper Research estimate 48 million to be shipped in 2020.
Urbanisation and a reduction in available time for household chores were cited as key drivers behind the growth.
This was reflected at CES 2017 - arguably the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow - where nearly half of the Robotics marketplace was dedicated to this class of consumer robot.
In addition, a swathe of large-scale vendors, including Dyson, Samsung and LG have unveiled housekeeping robots, demonstrating a viable commercial proposition.
However, new research titled “Consumer Robotics: Investment, Disruptors & Future Prospects 2017-2021” predicted that consumer demand for social robots will be more limited and will not gain traction until 2021.
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So called ‘companion’ robots, such as Jibo, Kuri and Pepper, are currently unable to differentiate themselves in any meaningful way from smart home assistant devices such as Amazon’s Echo.
Many such robots are currently sold at more than 5 times the price of Amazon’s device.
To justify the units’ high costs, the research anticipated that investment into emotional response and recognition software would serve to positively impact the value proposition.
“Presently, social robots are little more than expensive smart home speakers – they may look impressive but their performance is limited”, noted research author Steffen Sorrell.
“Visual and aural understanding, service integration and emotional intelligence will form the key pillars that drive consumer interest in social robotics.”
On the other hand, healthcare robots are predicted to penetrate the market similarly to housekeeping robots.
The research noted that ageing populations, particularly in some parts of Asia and North America, would mean that development and commercialisation of healthcare robots would become prevalent.
Nonetheless, it predicted that the market would be significantly more challenging in Western nations.
This is due to dramatic regional differences in public perception of robots.
The whitepaper, Consumer Robotics ~ From Housekeeper to Friend, is available to download from the Juniper Research website together with further details of the new research and interactive dataset.