A report by Juniper Research has revealed that one in ten US households will have a robotics housekeeper by 2020 as more people find ways to boost their leisure time and cut the amount of time spent cleaning their homes.
In its Consumer Robotics: Investment, Disruptors & Future Prospects 2017-2021 report, Juniper predicted global shipments of housekeeper robots will grow by more than 200 per cent, from 15.7 million up to 48 million in the next three years, because people just don’t have the time to clean their house.
However, social robots won’t becoming mainstream until 2021, when the research firm predicts the likes of Pepper, Jibo and Kuri will start differentiating themselves from smart home assistants such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, which are much cheaper and less intrusive.
“Presently, social robots are little more than expensive smart home speakers – they may look impressive but their performance is limited,” said 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.”
The dawn of the housekeeper robots was realised at this year’s CES, where many of the robotic innovations were focused on making life easier for people, including connecting home devices to automate your laundry, cooking and food purchasing decisions.
Other companies looking into robotic technologies that could carry out all household chores include Samsung and Dyson, the latter of which has developed an automated vacuum cleaner. The Dyson 360 was released at the end of last year and unlike other automated cleaners offers an optimum level of cleaning on the floor surface it could reach, although early reviews said it struggles to reach under low furniture and the cleaning zones can’t be controlled.
