Bots the big idea: humanoid robots finally ready to move into our homes

After decades on every sci-fi fan’s wish list, personal robots are on the cusp of entering our homes. Now it’s time to put them to work. Everyone knows Pepper, the child-sized humanoid robot launched back in 2014 who was created to welcome visitors to SoftBank Mobile stores in Japan. Now Pepper has scored a few jobs in the US, from giving directions in a shopping mall in San Francisco to pouring beer at Oakland International Airport’s Pyramid Taproom.

The diminutive Pepper is not alone, not even at airports. LG recently showed off its Airport Robot, a Pepper-sized stationary robot that can listen to, and speak, in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and English. It gives directions, gate information and updated schedules for planes, and will soon be employed at Incheon International Airport in Seoul. A sister robot from LG even cleans airports.

Hotels and high-rise apartments are also embracing robots. Savioke’s Relay delivery robot is all about discreet, timely room service, delivering food, drinks, towels and toiletries to hotel rooms. “Once it’s been installed in a building it knows where all the rooms and elevators are, and you just tell it which one to go to,” says Steve Cousins, chief executive and founder of Savioke, speaking at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month (the exhibition floors of which featured a robot barista from Beijing’s Bubble Lab serving coffee to attendees).

“We’re not trying to build a grandiose new robot with lots of new capabilities, we just wanted to create a robot that could be around people in the real world,” says Cousins.