Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

August 18, according to the Wall Street Journal, a new smart home technology is in vogue. This technology includes mobile robot furniture (robotic furniture), artificial intelligence systems, cameras and so on. All the furniture in the room can be moved, and if you press a button, the messy bedroom will become a spotless living room. In addition, the camera in the room automatically tracks the location of the item, which means that no matter where you throw it, the intelligent system can help you find it.

The ▲ bed came down from the ceiling

At present, the robot furniture is expensive, with a set of equipment selling for about $40,000. But the relevant personnel are making continuous efforts to reduce the cost of the equipment. In places such as Durham and Buffalo in the US, the cost of a set of robotic furniture has fallen to $5000. The robot furniture has been installed in an apartment that rents for $1000 a month.

Hasier Larrea, CEO of Ori, the German furniture company, said Ori worked with IKEA on the project in 2019 and now Ori has launched a robotic furniture system, which has a version on the market.

First, telecommuting, rising house prices, automatic furniture ushering in a wave of robot furniture, the biggest function of robot furniture is to turn a single room into a multi-functional space, if it can be promoted, it can help Americans reduce the pressure of rising house prices.

Today, the occupancy rate of office space in most parts of the United States is less than 50%, and more and more Americans work from home. Therefore, their requirements for living space are getting higher and higher. And because the housing market in the United States has been in short supply, rents continue to rise across the country. In order to save rent, people can only choose to live in smaller spaces or share with others.

This is Ori's entrepreneurial philosophy. In 2011, Larrea was a researcher at the MIT Urban Science Group (City Science group). He began to explore the idea of "living bigger with less money." In 2015, he founded Ori. Ori's mobile furniture system is now installed in more than 500 apartments in more than 30 cities in the United States, and Larrea says thousands more will be installed in the next two years.

▲ Ori's model apartment in New York

Using robotic furniture, both real estate and tenants win-win. There is a 54-unit building in Fort worth, Texas, USA. The 43 units of the building are equipped with Ori Pocket Studio (Ori Pocket Studios). Ori pocket studio is a kind of modular furniture, the designer hides the studio behind the TV cabinet, and the walls can move back and forth along the tracks installed along the wall. Users can control this kind of furniture through the App equipped with Ori. Automatic furniture has protective measures, which can be stopped as soon as it is blocked. In the event of a power outage, the furniture can be moved manually.

Pocket Studio by ▲ Ori

"if someone is coming, all you have to do is press a button and hide the messy bedroom or wardrobe instantly," said Kasi Bailey, 31, a resident of the building. Although she is still worried about problems because her technology is too new, so far, she has not encountered any problems.

▲ Ori's room-changing devices can be activated through touch, voice, and applications developed by Ori, and can be moved manually when power is off

Matt Bischoff, the investment director of Watermark Equity Group, the real estate developer that built the building, said that the average studio apartment in the area is 55 square meters and the average rent is $1450, but the average area of these robot-furnished apartments is 31 square meters and the average rent is $1100. Tenants rent houses at lower prices, and they earn more rent per square meter.

These robotic furniture make small apartments more popular. It usually takes six months to rent out all the apartments in the building, but after installing robot furniture, the process takes only a month, Mr. Bischoff said.

▲ multi-function compartment

Third, smart voice control, watches "fall from the sky" according to the Wall Street Journal, if Ori is compared to IKEA in the field of robot furniture, it is cheap and cost-effective. Then interior design company bumblebee space (Bumblebee Spaces) is its richer "relative". Almost all of the company's employees are former Apple and Tesla employees.

Bumblebee space beds, tables, cabinets and so on are embedded in the ceiling of the living room, the storage space is more convenient. Not only that, bumblebee space is also committed to the development of supporting App, all the items in the space will be classified.

Robot Furniture in ▲ Hornet Space

All you need to say is, "bumblebee, give me my watch." A box will fall off the ceiling and send the watch in front of you. "it's all thanks to cameras and artificial intelligence systems that can sort hundreds of household items," said Sankarshan Murthy, CEO of bumblebee. "basically, they can find anything you throw away."

The ▲ bumblebee app displays the contents of lockers in the ceiling

This robotic furniture system requires a sufficiently high ceiling, supporting structure and power system. At present, bumblebee's robotic furniture system has sold more than 100 units. The system starts at $14000, while a fully equipped single room costs as much as $37000.

Fourth, the whole wall is movable, so that privacy protection can be upgraded in Spain. About 1/3 of apartments and apartments with an area of less than 59 square meters are usually inhabited by a family. For such tenants, just maximizing the use of space is not enough, privacy issues are also very important. Simply moving furniture in a room does not guarantee privacy, only real walls and doors.

To address the needs of such users, Spanish design company Enorme Studio has designed a new system that allows the entire wall to move. The system is produced by Beyome, a construction company, and CEO-- ñ igo Moreno of Beyome says it costs about 1000 euros (6894 yuan) per square meter to equip a family with Enorme, which is comparable to the cost of completely renovating and renovating an apartment in Spain.

▲ Enorme system

Conclusion: furniture ushered in a new trend of automation, the way ahead is still unknown, furniture automation is a new trend, but this field is still facing the problem of high cost. Some people in the industry are pessimistic about this, jokingly saying that "the poor can't afford it, and the rich can't use it." They believe that at the same cost, people will give priority to more space.

From Rethink Robotics's attempt to introduce programmable "collaborative robots" into small businesses to Jibo's attempts to bring "social" robots into their homes, there have been many companies in history that have tried to integrate robots into people's daily lives, but they have not ended well. So it's hard to say whether these start-ups in robotic furniture will be successful.

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