Fiction often tells us it’s a bad idea to bring robots into our homes – but now UK innovator Dyson has entered the arena with the aim of trailblazing a new consumer sector – and hoping British consumers get a taste for a bit of non-human home help.
The firm has been refitting an aircraft hangar at Hullavington Airfield, a former RAF station in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and is to move roughly 250 roboticists over to the new lab, with plans to hire 700 more people in the next five years.
After James Dyson’s success with gadgets including vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, hair dryers and fans, the latest move will be eagerly watched to see whether it has broader ramifications for an industry with big potential.
It’s a long way from the rebellious androids of I Robot, Blade Runners’ Replicants or the must-have “synths” of hit Channel 4 series Humans – Dyson’s robotic help is very much functional in design and operation.
So will the firm be leading the charge in a soon-to-be-burgeoning industry of the future – or will its vision end up in the robot scrapyard?
Welcome help with the chores
Workplace automation is often seen as a threat to human jobs – but research has shown home-based chores are where the impact could be felt most.
Data from the Office of National Statistics, which estimated which jobs would be most at risk of automation, showed “cleaners and domestics” was one of the most likely employment sectors to be taken on by robots – 68 per cent of such jobs were likely to be automated – with 57 per cent of cooks’ jobs predicted to suffer the same fate.
This suggests that robots vacuuming, doing our dishes, and cooking us dinner, is a case of when, rather than if.
A recent ICM poll showed 55 per cent of people would be prepared to use robotics in the home, with the majority citing the extra free time as an incentive.
But regardless of how healthy and willing the demand side is, the supply side seems far from catching up.
The shape of things to come?
The robotics industry is still in its nascent state – so everything is up for grabs.
The International Federation of Robotics says the service robots industry – robots for non-industrial purposes – is “more diverse and less tangible than the industrial robot industry”, and while it has grown to 1,067 companies worldwide, “many of these companies are still in the product development stage and do not have marketable products yet”.
Dr Gilbert Tang, a lecturer in robotics at Cranfield University, said domestic robots are becoming more popular, but that the focus is on practical applications.
“I believe the trend will be for more practical uses rather than the humanoid working at home that many people envisage when we talk a out robots,” he said.
He added that like many new innovations, the prevalence of domestic robots will grow “once the economies of scale are achieved to bring the price down to a point where most people can afford them”.
In 2019, Cranfield University predicted that there would be 39.5 million domestic robots in our homes by 2021, carrying out the tasks we would all happily relinquish in favour of some extra free time, but it’s unclear whether this figure has been met.
Data danger
Rick Clayton, an associate director who leads the technology team at Bath-based Buro Happold Engineering, said there was “lots of talk” around different types of robots, ranging from labour-saving devices to more sophisticated aids to help care for the elderly.
“Into the future, I think there will be a time when you start to see what people would class as robots more actively engaging in daily aspects of our lives,” he said.
“When people think of home-based robots, they might think of something like the Jetsons, and that’s part of it, but there’s a whole vast array of different levels before that kind of thing.”
Mr Clayton said the robotic devices that performed best at present focused on just one task, but as devices become more sophisticated, they will inevitably be connected to the cloud, potentially sharpening the double-edged sword that is data proliferation.
“Data is really valuable for devices to understand how to service us better, and to understand what works and what doesn’t,” he said.
“But the risk is cyber safety, and people hacking into your system and telling your robot to do something, or gleaning knowledge about you from that data and using it for a purpose other than the one intended.”
He added that the domestic robotics market was “in its infancy”, and the size of the user base that could afford domestic robotic devices remained small.
Building the robo-home
Greater proliferation could occur more quickly if domestic robots became intrinsic parts of housebuilding and home design.
Mr Clayton said that some housebuilders, such as one of his firm’s clients, Barratt Developments, were “starting to be more cognisant of the need to install infrastructure to support the later adoption of technology” in some higher-end developments – such as by avoiding foil-covered insulation, which inhibits wifi signal – and putting in multiple wired internet connections to better support smart devices.
However, as yet, the cost of implementing robotics has been seldom worth it for housing developers, as it “does not add sufficient cachet to say that a house comes with a robotic vacuum cleaner”.
The entrance of Dyson into the market perhaps makes it more likely that a robotic device of some kind could become more prevalent in our homes in the near-to-medium term – albeit tackling singular, functional tasks.
With Elon Musk recently presenting his ambitions to build a humanoid Tesla bot, there could be a broadening in the domestic services robot market, with more mass-market products at one end and cutting-edge ones at the other.
How successful each firm is, alongside any others that try to mimic their efforts, will ultimately determine whether fiction becomes reality.
