Latest / In the Loop AI / Lume: The Bedroom Robot That Folds Your Laundry | Founder Aaron Tan

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Lume: The Bedroom Robot That Folds Your Laundry | Founder Aaron Tan · In the Loop AI

0:03
Ejaaz: The most interesting robot of 2025 doesn't
0:07
Ejaaz: look like a robot in fact they look like two bedside table lamps that morph
0:13
Ejaaz: into robotic arms and fold the laundry that's on your bed no six foot five humanoid
0:19
Ejaaz: robot just clean decisive robotic arms that do what you want it to do and remove
0:25
Ejaaz: the most hated chore ever.
0:27
Ejaaz: But don't take my word for it. We have the founder, Aaron Tan,
0:31
Ejaaz: of Sincere on our show today that's going to walk us through it.
0:35
Ejaaz: Aaron, welcome to the show.
0:37
Ejaaz: I want to start off pretty hot and straight to the point.
0:40
Ejaaz: What is Loom and why did you build it?
0:44
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, thanks for the intro and thanks for having me on.
0:49
Aaron Tan: Loom, I think, in its simplest form is it's a robotic lamp.
0:54
Aaron Tan: It's designed to not look like a robot at all. We want to sort of get rid of
0:58
Aaron Tan: chores for people in a way without making them feel like we're adding robots into their home.
1:03
Aaron Tan: And a lamp, based on its silhouette and its form factor, is sort of like the
1:08
Aaron Tan: perfect shape to hire robotics in plain sight.
1:12
Aaron Tan: So that's what we're building at Sincere.
1:15
Josh: Aaron, I loved the video. There's some things that when I'm scrolling my timeline,
1:18
Josh: I see and they just kind of break my mind.
1:20
Josh: They break the perception of what it means to be a robot.
1:23
Josh: This was one of them because so frequently I see these things that look like
1:27
Josh: humanoid robots or you see like these kind of robotic cars or vehicles.
1:31
Josh: This was very obscure. This was, it was lampposts that kind of turn into arms that fold your laundry.
1:37
Josh: And it just felt very natural when I saw it. It felt right.
1:39
Josh: There's some things you see and it just feels right. So how does this work?
1:43
Josh: Like, is this possible that it can actually just sit as a lamppost and And then
1:47
Josh: it can kind of reach over your bed and do the laundry while you're gone.
1:50
Josh: Can you just explain to me how this product functions? It's just going to sit
1:53
Josh: there and do my laundry? Is that really that simple?
1:55
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, no, I'm glad that you like it.
2:00
Aaron Tan: And, you know, what it is, it's we...
2:04
Aaron Tan: They're meant so that you could place them sort of anywhere in the home.
2:07
Aaron Tan: It just so happens that when we spoke to a lot of people, it's that the bedroom
2:11
Aaron Tan: happens to be a place where a lot of people do their laundry.
2:13
Aaron Tan: People just dump it on the bed because it's such a large surface.
2:16
Aaron Tan: The closet is usually nearby, so they fold the laundry in front of the bed and they put it away.
2:22
Aaron Tan: What the workflow we sort of imagine is that, you know, you do the same things,
2:26
Aaron Tan: except now you just get to dump your laundry on the bed.
2:29
Aaron Tan: You walk away, you go watch a movie or, you know, have a meal.
2:31
Aaron Tan: And then when you come back, it's supposed to feel like the laundry sort of
2:35
Aaron Tan: magically folded and sorted themselves.
2:37
Aaron Tan: And you only have to handle the part where you put it away yourself right at the end there.
2:43
Aaron Tan: And yeah, we're starting with laundry folding. But you can probably imagine
2:47
Aaron Tan: what a pair of robotic arms or single, you could buy them either by itself or as a pair.
2:53
Aaron Tan: You can imagine all the kind of like things that it can do depending on where
2:57
Aaron Tan: you place them in the home.
2:59
Ejaaz: Okay so for the listeners of our show that can't
3:02
Ejaaz: see this awesome video that's going on loop right now they're kind
3:05
Ejaaz: of wondering how on earth this works aaron so right now they're imagining like
3:10
Ejaaz: two bedside table lamps but can you walk us through how it works like are there
3:14
Ejaaz: like specific claws that like pinch how do they see things how do they know
3:18
Ejaaz: when you're out of the room and when you're not sleeping and they're going to
3:21
Ejaaz: like poke your eyes out how does this work Yeah,
3:24
Aaron Tan: Yeah. So you can sort of just imagine a floor lamp. So it's,
3:27
Aaron Tan: you know, tall, skinny, single pole.
3:30
Aaron Tan: There are sort of lamp hoods at the top of the lamp that conceals everything
3:35
Aaron Tan: that is robotic about this lamp.
3:36
Aaron Tan: So obviously there's going to be lights inside the lamp hood so that it can
3:39
Aaron Tan: serve the basic purpose of a lamp.
3:42
Aaron Tan: But with those lights, there's also robot grippers in there as well as a camera.
3:47
Aaron Tan: A lot of people sort of like wonder about privacy about these things.
3:50
Aaron Tan: But the great thing here is that the lamp hoods sort of conceal everything until
3:56
Aaron Tan: you've given it permission to fold your laundry or do whatever the task may be.
4:01
Aaron Tan: Then it sort of like almost folds back, reveals the camera, reveals the gripper,
4:06
Aaron Tan: detects the clothing, and then goes ahead and folds.
4:10
Aaron Tan: Obviously, it'll make sure that no one is laying in bed or on the couch or by
4:14
Aaron Tan: the table because there's a variety of places where laundry clothing can happen. yeah
4:21
Ejaaz: Okay, and how much does this thing cost? Like, I can imagine that for a troll
4:27
Ejaaz: that I hate so much, I'm willing to pay like a couple grand for it.
4:30
Ejaaz: But yeah, can you tell us how that works?
4:33
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. So we, I mean, right now we have some ideas like pricing is obviously
4:39
Aaron Tan: a tricky one, but we want to get it to people for as cheap as possible.
4:44
Aaron Tan: We're experimenting with two models. There's sort of two camps just from the
4:47
Aaron Tan: people that signed up on the wait list. I'm in direct communication with them all the time.
4:52
Aaron Tan: And it's either going to be like a one-time fixed fee sub $2,000 or maybe just
4:58
Aaron Tan: a few hundred dollars where you buy the lamp for the lamp itself and then pay
5:01
Aaron Tan: like a subscription for the folding.
5:04
Aaron Tan: So it's like paying a cleaner,
5:06
Ejaaz: Basically, like to come in every reason.
5:08
Aaron Tan: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So we're still sort of experimenting to see what
5:12
Aaron Tan: resonates the most with people.
5:13
Aaron Tan: I'm happy to hear actually your guys' thoughts on what you think would be the proper pricing model.
5:22
Ejaaz: Honestly just to like off the top of my head i
5:25
Ejaaz: would be willing to pay it like on
5:28
Ejaaz: a subscription level like how i would pay i pay a
5:30
Ejaaz: cleaner to come in now every kind of like couple of weeks and covers everything
5:35
Ejaaz: including the laundry and the folding as well which is a massive win and i was
5:41
Ejaaz: wondering that if i could have something that is aesthetically pleasing to my
5:45
Ejaaz: taste um and can do all the job and work for me for the cost of,
5:49
Ejaaz: I don't know, electricity or a Netflix subscription.
5:52
Ejaaz: I'm all game for that. Josh, do you have a conflicting opinion here?
5:55
Josh: Yeah, as you're describing this, actually, I'm thinking about my memberships
5:58
Josh: that I have between my Whoop and my Oura Ring and kind of the differences between the two.
6:01
Josh: With the Oura Ring, you purchase an expensive ring for about $400 and $6 a month
6:05
Josh: versus the Whoop that you get for free, but you're paying $30 a month.
6:08
Josh: And I kind of actually like paying a little bit more upfront with the expectation
6:12
Josh: that the smaller monthly payment will be in exchange for updates and continuing
6:16
Josh: to maintain the software stack.
6:18
Josh: So if you were to price it maybe closer to $2,000 and instead of maybe $100
6:22
Josh: monthly fee, a $20 monthly fee, that to me feels a little more exciting because
6:26
Josh: it's manageable. I don't really have to budget too much for the subscription.
6:29
Josh: And I have paid up front with the promise that hopefully future software updates
6:33
Josh: will deliver added functionality.
6:35
Josh: So to me, at least that seems like the fun way to price this thing.
6:38
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I sort of agree with you guys.
6:42
Aaron Tan: That's sort of what I'm personally leaning on. But the thing I'm trying to be
6:45
Aaron Tan: cautious of is, because I know that a lot of folks have also reached out and
6:49
Aaron Tan: told me and they're kind of, you know, just sick of being tied to a bunch of subscriptions.
6:52
Aaron Tan: I get where they're coming from, because you don't want to feel like you're
6:55
Aaron Tan: being nickel and dime for every time you want a chore done.
6:58
Aaron Tan: That's not the typical relationship people have with their appliances,
7:01
Aaron Tan: like a laundry machine or a dishwasher.
7:03
Aaron Tan: Sure um so yeah i totally see where you guys come from uh but we we probably
7:09
Aaron Tan: have to sort of test it to see what the market says uh but yeah i
7:14
Josh: Want to talk about design for a little bit because i mean obviously the first
7:17
Josh: thing that stuck out was the design this is gorgeous and this was not by accident
7:20
Josh: this was a very intentional design it looks very friendly it doesn't look robotic
7:25
Josh: or mean or or anything like.
7:27
Aaron Tan: That can you walk
7:27
Josh: Me through the design process how you wound up with this because i mean at first
7:30
Josh: glance we're watching the video now it looks like they're just two fixed lampposts
7:33
Josh: to a bed there's no sign of it being a robot so can you walk us through just
7:37
Josh: like the thought process behind designing these types of robots for the home.
7:39
Aaron Tan: Yeah yeah i mean so i think
7:42
Aaron Tan: you know i when we set out to build this product we
7:46
Aaron Tan: didn't knew that this was going to be the thing that we built and
7:48
Aaron Tan: in fact the first thing that we tried to build as a company uh is
7:51
Aaron Tan: me and my co-founder and we have a small team of about six people here right
7:54
Aaron Tan: now um we actually were building a
7:57
Aaron Tan: humanoid first because we were
8:00
Aaron Tan: uh we were you know we didn't we had just finished our phds and
8:03
Aaron Tan: we were you know just we didn't think too much about the idea we
8:06
Aaron Tan: just didn't want to do chores as as most engineers i
8:09
Aaron Tan: guess are pretty lazy um so we we went
8:12
Aaron Tan: in and we built a humanoid robot two arms and
8:15
Aaron Tan: two wheels you know got it into homes got it into hotels
8:18
Aaron Tan: you know got it in front of real people and it was
8:21
Aaron Tan: only through doing that that we realized that the majority
8:25
Aaron Tan: of people outside of like the tech bubble or like
8:28
Aaron Tan: the you know the technical inclined population which is the majority
8:31
Aaron Tan: of people um they they don't
8:34
Aaron Tan: actually want something that's like pseudo-human like
8:37
Aaron Tan: it's almost like a like a sentient being almost like a
8:40
Aaron Tan: robotic roommate that you have to share your home with um and
8:44
Aaron Tan: you know one thing led to another you know
8:46
Aaron Tan: people told us it was intrusive it was a bit intimidating um there's
8:50
Aaron Tan: no way to guarantee it sort of like falling on the child or
8:53
Aaron Tan: just hitting things and and there's there's also
8:56
Aaron Tan: mixing with this whole like it's probably going to be
8:59
Aaron Tan: majority uh tele-operated so you know
9:01
Aaron Tan: you're giving cameras and arms to people that are potentially
9:04
Aaron Tan: overseas or somewhere else um you know when all that mixed in we just essentially
9:09
Aaron Tan: Got a lot of pushback from people adopting the human or form factor into the
9:13
Aaron Tan: home um so we we we as a team we sort of took a step back and we sort of thought
9:20
Aaron Tan: to ourselves you know it certainly feels like there's all these chores that people hate doing.
9:24
Aaron Tan: And it certainly feels like robotics is the way to get rid of these chores.
9:27
Aaron Tan: But the way that people have been approaching the problem feels kind of the wrong way.
9:33
Aaron Tan: It kind of feels like everybody is trying to
9:36
Aaron Tan: Take things that made sense in an industrial setting like a
9:39
Aaron Tan: factory where humanoids could make sense in a factory in my
9:42
Aaron Tan: opinion but that's only because like you could train your
9:45
Aaron Tan: staff to be cautious around the robot you can draw yellow tape
9:48
Aaron Tan: on the line you could sort of you know all
9:51
Aaron Tan: these like even teleoperation makes sense in a factory because at least you
9:54
Aaron Tan: know if the robot gets hurt that the worker doesn't right so all
9:57
Aaron Tan: these concepts they all seem like they make a lot sense in in the factory but
10:01
Aaron Tan: it's just like when you try to take that and put it into the home it's like
10:04
Aaron Tan: everything is wrong you know like in the home people come from all backgrounds
10:08
Aaron Tan: all education all profession all different types of upbringing you cannot possibly
10:12
Aaron Tan: train every single person to be a factory employee essentially
10:16
Aaron Tan: Which like makes that whole free roaming system multi
10:19
Aaron Tan: degrees of freedom very very hard to
10:23
Aaron Tan: enter the home safely and then obviously teleoperation which
10:26
Aaron Tan: I touched on it's very not private the home is a very very private space the
10:31
Aaron Tan: factory is not it's a workspace space um so like all these things um made us
10:37
Aaron Tan: realize that we needed to sort of think about robotics for the home completely
10:42
Aaron Tan: differently and and i want to thank my wife here actually
10:46
Aaron Tan: the whole thing was inspired by beauty and the beast we were watching we were
10:52
Aaron Tan: watching beauty and the beast one night uh this is a few months ago actually
10:55
Aaron Tan: um and it was like this scene if you guys seen the movie or if anybody listening
10:59
Aaron Tan: who's seen the movie there's a scene where sort And the furniture comes alive.
11:04
Aaron Tan: And that was when we realized that, you know, we should... This is the form
11:08
Aaron Tan: factor that people are familiar with.
11:10
Aaron Tan: It's the form factor that has a place that it belongs in the home.
11:14
Aaron Tan: And we know that nobody wakes up asking for a robot anyway. People just don't want to do chores.
11:20
Aaron Tan: So we sort of designed it into this lamp form factor where...
11:25
Aaron Tan: It almost feels as if the, you know, like the, the chore sort of like magically,
11:29
Aaron Tan: you know, completes themselves and there's never sort of like yellow tape added
11:33
Aaron Tan: to your home and large clunking machines added to your home.
11:35
Ejaaz: Yeah. I immediately thought of Beauty and the Beast when I actually saw this video.
11:41
Ejaaz: And the natural question to ask from this is you're starting off with lamps,
11:45
Ejaaz: but like what can we expect next?
11:48
Ejaaz: Is there like a natural obvious robot that comes after the robotic arms folding laundry on the bed?
11:54
Aaron Tan: There is um there is i will say
11:57
Aaron Tan: at this very moment we have a lot
12:00
Aaron Tan: of designs of a lot of different types of robots but we're
12:03
Aaron Tan: not ready to share them yet uh the the
12:06
Aaron Tan: ones that we for sure will build in the coming
12:08
Aaron Tan: years is that there's going to be a sort of a suite a suite
12:12
Aaron Tan: of lamps um from tabletop lamps to full lamps
12:15
Aaron Tan: to lamps with multiple heads different styles different architectures we've
12:18
Aaron Tan: sort of like went on this deep dive of like every
12:21
Aaron Tan: single lamp that's ever been invented in the history of
12:24
Aaron Tan: time um and we are drawing inspirations from things that's worked you know hundreds
12:29
Aaron Tan: of years ago in terms of like the aesthetics the designs and we're just basically
12:33
Aaron Tan: trying to find ways to modernize them add robotic abilities to them um and basically
12:37
Aaron Tan: reinvent the lamp almost in a way from ceiling lamps all the way down to floor lamps i
12:42
Ejaaz: I have to i have to say i i love this obsession with not just like singular
12:48
Ejaaz: use robots but like a singular kind of type of furniture.
12:53
Ejaaz: And it seems pretty embedded in your philosophy for building robots.
12:57
Ejaaz: Would you say that's pretty accurate for like what the entire company's vision is?
13:00
Ejaaz: Like, are you going to be building single use robots that do one thing really
13:05
Ejaaz: well? Or are these going to be multi purpose at some point?
13:08
Aaron Tan: I think they will eventually be multi purpose. But I think, you know,
13:11
Aaron Tan: like the overall mission of the company is to be able to build beautiful robots
13:15
Aaron Tan: that blend beautifully into human made worlds.
13:17
Aaron Tan: And right now, what that looks like are these lamps that don't look like robots, essentially.
13:23
Aaron Tan: But, you know, as you know, AI advances at such a, you know,
13:26
Aaron Tan: fast pace. Hardware does as well. Technology is always changing.
13:31
Aaron Tan: We don't want to limit ourselves eventually to just single purpose, single use.
13:35
Aaron Tan: It's just so that right now, that is the only feasible way to deploy such a
13:40
Aaron Tan: system into the home in the next few years.
13:45
Josh: I'm curious how you view the difference between the single use versus humanoid robots.
13:49
Josh: If it's an intermediary step or if it's a permanent fixture because
13:52
Josh: it feels like the reason we're making so many humanoids is
13:55
Josh: just because like the world is built for humans right and it's just very easy to
13:57
Josh: integrate something that has the same form as us um and
14:01
Josh: these narrow use you'll at least right now as kind of an intermediary step where
14:05
Josh: they're just really good at a few things mostly because humanoid robots aren't
14:08
Josh: that great and they're kind of they need to tell operation like you mentioned
14:11
Josh: before and there's a lot more maintenance required for a complex humanoid robot
14:14
Josh: do you view these narrow use robots as an intermediate step to humanoid?
14:19
Josh: Or do you think they're like a permanent fixture as we move forward and progress with robots?
14:24
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. I think more of the latter than the former. And I have so many thoughts on this, actually.
14:29
Aaron Tan: But I'll sort of start with one at a time.
14:33
Aaron Tan: I think that the way I sort of imagine this, how this plays out is that,
14:40
Aaron Tan: you know, like the human noise form factor, obviously, is great.
14:43
Aaron Tan: Like, again, like I see so many benefits of it, especially in a factory setting,
14:47
Aaron Tan: because there's just so many use cases where it doesn't make sense to sort of
14:51
Aaron Tan: have like a single device that handles all.
14:52
Aaron Tan: There's always these kind of like last mile type of tasks where you
14:56
Aaron Tan: would need an adaptable form factor to be able to handle um but
15:00
Aaron Tan: the thing is you know the one analogy that
15:03
Aaron Tan: i like to use is that in the best case scenario a humanoid robot let's just
15:07
Aaron Tan: like sort of um scale it to the limits let's imagine that they are basically
15:12
Aaron Tan: as good as us so they look like us talk like us you know think like us act like
15:16
Aaron Tan: us i know there's a future where they're actually better than us but for the
15:20
Aaron Tan: sake of this let's just assume that we'll
15:22
Josh: Try that line there.
15:22
Aaron Tan: Yeah let's draw the line that they cap at exactly like
15:25
Aaron Tan: us perfect and and in this world
15:28
Aaron Tan: so they become indistinguishable right this is the best case scenario which
15:31
Aaron Tan: in my personal opinion will take a few miracles and probably a few decades to
15:34
Aaron Tan: get to um but in this world um
15:37
Aaron Tan: i personally think that uh a version
15:41
Aaron Tan: of that world already exists right now uh and it's like you guys hire cleaners
15:45
Aaron Tan: to to sort of enter your home and these are sort of like you know people that
15:49
Aaron Tan: you hire to to do labor uh but the thing is like there's this stat that's the
15:54
Aaron Tan: surprising stat that i found in estates which is that 70 of people uh
16:00
Aaron Tan: If they're able to afford such a help, they still choose not to.
16:06
Aaron Tan: And I used to think that it's because people can't afford it.
16:10
Aaron Tan: That's why they don't want it.
16:12
Aaron Tan: But the truth actually is that 70% of the people who can afford it still don't choose to do it.
16:16
Aaron Tan: And the reason quite simply is just that humans are territorial.
16:20
Aaron Tan: The home is a private space. There's sort of this trust that you're giving to
16:24
Aaron Tan: others when they enter your personal space that a lot of people don't find comfortable with.
16:30
Aaron Tan: In fact, I think another surprising stat was that I think it was like a quarter
16:36
Aaron Tan: of the people, if they were given free in-home help, they would still reject it for the same reason.
16:42
Aaron Tan: So when all that blended in together, at best case scenario,
16:47
Aaron Tan: I'm sure that there is a segment of the market that will happily welcome a humanoid into their home.
16:52
Aaron Tan: But I'm willing to bet that the majority of the market, at least for the home
16:56
Aaron Tan: use case, simply just want tools that they can sort of like control on demand, that they can use.
17:03
Aaron Tan: They're still very much the owner of their space and they're not sharing sort
17:07
Aaron Tan: of with like a robotic roommate.
17:08
Aaron Tan: I mean, that's also one of the reasons why people don't prefer to live with
17:11
Aaron Tan: roommates unless it's for companionship.
17:14
Aaron Tan: But I don't think that robot companionship is something that's going to happen.
17:18
Aaron Tan: It's not a robot thing. I think it's a human thing.
17:22
Aaron Tan: So that's sort of like how I see like we're essentially addressing the market
17:26
Aaron Tan: that simply just don't want to share their space, whether it be with another
17:29
Aaron Tan: human or a pseudo human per se.
17:32
Josh: Do you think people are coming around to that idea as robots become more prevalent
17:36
Josh: in the world to let them into their spaces? Because I think a lot of people
17:40
Josh: in the case of AI, they they have slowly kind of eased their way into it.
17:45
Josh: And then there reaches a point.
17:47
Josh: I mean, I'm thinking of ChatGPT when I think of this, where they just fully
17:50
Josh: unload everything. And now it becomes their therapist, their psychologist,
17:54
Josh: their personal assistant, everything.
17:56
Josh: It just learns everything about their life. There was some reluctance to get
17:58
Josh: to that point, but eventually they've reached that point.
18:00
Josh: Do you see a similar thing happening here? Even just with the pre-orders and
18:04
Josh: feedback you've gotten from the product, is this something that people are willing
18:07
Josh: to put in their homes or does there still need to be more work in terms of safety?
18:11
Josh: I mean, if I'm thinking, like I just had a child, let's say,
18:14
Josh: and that child's sitting in the bed.
18:16
Josh: Well, no, I didn't. I'm just using a rhetorical example. Okay, okay.
18:20
Josh: In the case that I did, let's say that I have one just like laying in my bed
18:22
Josh: over here and there are two robotic arms sitting there.
18:25
Josh: Do I trust that the robotic arms are not going to harm that child in any sort of glitch?
18:29
Josh: And do you think people are having trouble getting over that idea?
18:32
Josh: Or do you see it just being this natural stepping stone and people are on board and ready to go?
18:38
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the world, the average home has never,
18:43
Aaron Tan: I think that even the average person has never even interacted with a robot in their life.
18:47
Aaron Tan: I think that this is like a sort of a brand new category of product that will
18:51
Aaron Tan: for sure, you know, sort of take some time for people to get used to.
18:56
Aaron Tan: I think that you know obviously we're going to have the early adopters that
19:00
Aaron Tan: come on and they get super excited about such a thing and the way we're framing
19:04
Aaron Tan: our product is that it's both safer and more private
19:09
Aaron Tan: than the alternative home robotic solution
19:12
Aaron Tan: simply just because you as a resident in the home know at all times where the robot is
19:19
Aaron Tan: so for example if you had placed your child on a bed and you had a human or
19:24
Aaron Tan: a robot So maybe you cannot fully protect that child from the human robot because
19:28
Aaron Tan: the human robot sort of has free will to roam.
19:30
Aaron Tan: But because you already know that the robotic arms are there by the bed,
19:34
Aaron Tan: which is where you placed it, it's not going to leave.
19:36
Aaron Tan: Maybe the question is more so like if you don't trust it, then you probably
19:39
Aaron Tan: place your baby somewhere else, you know, because you mentally know that that
19:44
Aaron Tan: is like a robotic space, almost part of your home.
19:49
Ejaaz: I feel like we're kind of broaching the topic of humans being comfortable around robots.
19:56
Ejaaz: And if I'm being honest with you, Aaron, I was kind of a robot hater like a
20:00
Ejaaz: couple of months ago because I was like, what are these like random sci-fi things
20:05
Ejaaz: that it must be all janky?
20:07
Ejaaz: I see videos of them falling over.
20:09
Ejaaz: Josh and I actually watched the Robot Olympics that were held in China over the weekend.
20:12
Ejaaz: And most of them were kind of like fails and they were super entertaining.
20:16
Ejaaz: Um i'm kind of trying to
20:19
Ejaaz: figure out whether people are getting more comfortable with
20:22
Ejaaz: these robots and kind of like co-living around them right
20:25
Ejaaz: how important or real you think this phenomenon is do you think this is just
20:30
Ejaaz: kind of like a viral trend i know like you've got a company that's building
20:33
Ejaaz: these robots for decades from now but can you help us help our listeners understand
20:39
Ejaaz: the pitch of why robots are going to like essentially take over the world over
20:42
Ejaaz: the next couple of decades
20:43
Aaron Tan: Yeah i mean i i hope
20:47
Aaron Tan: they don't take over the world to be honest um i hope that
20:49
Aaron Tan: they i hope that they you know make the world a better place i guess i should
20:54
Aaron Tan: say i think that robots are at the end of the day a tool and they shouldn't
20:57
Aaron Tan: be sort of like autonomous self-thinking beings um that that act on their own
21:04
Aaron Tan: behalf with their own interests uh i think that that's
21:08
Aaron Tan: going to be a dangerous world um and i
21:11
Aaron Tan: don't know if i yeah i personally i don't know if i want to live in a world like that uh
21:15
Aaron Tan: for in terms of like sort of
21:18
Aaron Tan: like you know getting getting robots into the home again like our main thing
21:22
Aaron Tan: is that we want to free people's time like when you think about it it's 24 hours
21:26
Aaron Tan: in a day and it's like people sleep for eight hours work for eight hours the
21:29
Aaron Tan: remaining eight hours a day probably a good chunk of that is commute or chores
21:33
Aaron Tan: or whatever So even if you could just save someone like 30 minutes, an hour,
21:36
Aaron Tan: that's like a good percentage of the time in their day, right?
21:39
Aaron Tan: That's freed up. And I think that's ultimately a good thing.
21:44
Aaron Tan: And I think the way that we sort of,
21:47
Aaron Tan: sort of introduce robots into the home is that we have to be very,
21:51
Aaron Tan: very intentional with messaging, which is that, and I think this can only be
21:55
Aaron Tan: achieved with a single purpose robot to start with, which is that you have to
21:58
Aaron Tan: be able to tell people like what it can and cannot do.
22:00
Aaron Tan: Don't tell people that's general purpose. Don't tell people that it's a human
22:03
Aaron Tan: assistant that you can ask anything of.
22:06
Aaron Tan: Just say that, you know, at least for us is that it will fold laundry and this
22:10
Aaron Tan: is how you interact with it. You dump the laundry on the bed, you walk away.
22:13
Aaron Tan: It can be voice activation. it can be a button like a dishwasher it
22:16
Aaron Tan: could be an app that you sort of log into and you you
22:19
Aaron Tan: you give a permission to activate um and only
22:23
Aaron Tan: when you do that very very clearly and you tell people exactly what the workspace
22:27
Aaron Tan: is uh like something that i like is you know from like the vr world you can
22:31
Aaron Tan: sort of like draw this boundary around you when you're in the living room and
22:34
Aaron Tan: as you're sort of approach the walls it kind of like lights up and you know you know to go back
22:40
Aaron Tan: it's like similar concept but for robots in the home like i think
22:42
Aaron Tan: robots need to have like a fixed space that people know
22:45
Aaron Tan: where it's operating um you should be able
22:48
Aaron Tan: to know when it's on and when it's off um and
22:51
Aaron Tan: you should know exactly what it can and cannot do uh i think that's how you
22:55
Aaron Tan: would be able to manage expectations and that's how you earn trust and that's
22:58
Aaron Tan: how i think you'll be able to build like a generation of people that might grow
23:01
Aaron Tan: up with one of these lamps uh to have that positive connotation and positive
23:05
Aaron Tan: interaction with uh with robotics uh yeah yeah
23:10
Ejaaz: You keep referring to this home, which I love. So let's play a game.
23:16
Ejaaz: Five to 10 years from now, what
23:19
Ejaaz: does the average home look like in a world where home robots are a thing?
23:24
Ejaaz: What else are they doing aside from folding clothes?
23:27
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. So folding laundry is like our wedge into the home just because
23:31
Aaron Tan: it's like, and I'm sure you already know this, it's like a very annoying task
23:35
Aaron Tan: that people would actually pay money for.
23:37
Aaron Tan: Uh and once the the
23:41
Aaron Tan: internal saying is you know success to us is a loom in every room
23:44
Aaron Tan: um which is that we we see a world where
23:46
Aaron Tan: people own multiple of these lamps and depending on where they're placed
23:49
Aaron Tan: in the home they'll do whatever task that makes sense in
23:52
Aaron Tan: that context so for example a loom that's
23:55
Aaron Tan: in the kitchen might be able to help you with meal prepping whereas
23:58
Aaron Tan: a loom that's in your you know library might be
24:01
Aaron Tan: able to help you with tidying your bookshelf um and
24:04
Aaron Tan: and the whole idea is that you kind of
24:07
Aaron Tan: have these like limited range and limited pockets of where
24:10
Aaron Tan: the robot is um and and
24:14
Aaron Tan: yeah it will do whatever sort of we almost
24:17
Aaron Tan: wanted to be uh i sort of mentioned the other interview i
24:19
Aaron Tan: said that there will be like an app store almost um where
24:23
Aaron Tan: you'll be able to download different apps and you know
24:25
Aaron Tan: like gift wrapping is an app steaming is an app laundry folding is an
24:28
Aaron Tan: app uh meal prepping is an app oh super like
24:32
Aaron Tan: sorting of knickknacks around the home whatever is an
24:35
Aaron Tan: app and it's all enabled by the same form factor uh we we see this almost like
24:40
Aaron Tan: a kind of like the standard almost the default the foundational robot platform
24:45
Aaron Tan: uh that exists in every home that you can now go to get chores done or get tasks
24:50
Aaron Tan: done maybe it's not necessarily chores
24:54
Josh: So if laundry is the wedge, what comes next? What other cool,
24:58
Josh: weird things can we expect to come from these arms?
25:02
Ejaaz: We're going to keep pushing you on this, Aaron. Come on, give us something.
25:07
Aaron Tan: There's like, so the way I see it is there's like almost like three phases.
25:11
Aaron Tan: Maybe I'll say this. There's three phases of how we're going to increase the capabilities.
25:17
Aaron Tan: And it's all going to revolve around the same sort of form factor.
25:20
Aaron Tan: So phase one is is any kind
25:23
Aaron Tan: of like sort of inanimate object type manipulation so laundry
25:26
Aaron Tan: folding being one but bed making or general sorting
25:30
Aaron Tan: meal prepping tidying ironing steaming you know all that kind of just like random
25:36
Aaron Tan: stuff around the home you know we want to get really good at this stuff before
25:40
Aaron Tan: we move on to the second phase which is what i would call like the non-invasive
25:43
Aaron Tan: human contact type applications and those include things like massages therapy rehab
25:50
Aaron Tan: things that you could sort of get while you're sitting on the couch or laying
25:54
Aaron Tan: in bed. Massages is one big one that people love.
25:57
Aaron Tan: So that's something that we're going to go into.
26:00
Aaron Tan: But again, anything with human contact, obviously, you want to be a lot more careful.
26:03
Aaron Tan: That's why we want to be slow with our rollout to make sure that these arms
26:07
Aaron Tan: are stable, they're precise, they're sort of compliant, and they're safe.
26:11
Aaron Tan: And then ultimately, we go towards this like phase three, which I want to say
26:16
Aaron Tan: is more like an invasive human contact.
26:19
Aaron Tan: Where we sort of see this world where
26:22
Aaron Tan: You know, here you have these two pairs of robotic arms that's in your home somewhere.
26:28
Aaron Tan: And we think that this can open up a world of healthcare applications where
26:33
Aaron Tan: doctors can remote into these arms and deliver care right in the comfort of your home.
26:39
Aaron Tan: So an example could be like, you know, you cut yourself downstairs,
26:43
Aaron Tan: you go upstairs, and now there's these like professional arms with a healthcare app or something.
26:47
Aaron Tan: And you can get stitched up immediately while laying in bed or whatever it is
26:52
Aaron Tan: without having to drive like two hours just to wait six hours in an emergency
26:58
Aaron Tan: room and see a doctor for like two minutes.
27:00
Aaron Tan: We think that ultimately, you know, the most scalable way to healthcare is through the home.
27:06
Aaron Tan: And to do that is through, I think, robots that have the ability to manipulate
27:13
Aaron Tan: soft objects, started with laundry folding, have the ability to be careful and
27:17
Aaron Tan: have the ability to have already earned people's trust in homes.
27:21
Aaron Tan: So when you ask what the future of home could look like, I almost see a world
27:26
Aaron Tan: where there's almost like a, you know, you have like a kitchen,
27:28
Aaron Tan: which is like where you go to cook, you have a living room, you have the bedroom,
27:30
Aaron Tan: but there should also be almost like a health hub,
27:32
Aaron Tan: which probably is going to be doubled on as your bedroom, where you can receive
27:37
Aaron Tan: care without having to leave your home.
27:40
Aaron Tan: So that's kind of like the full spectrum of potential things that I think can
27:44
Aaron Tan: happen without changing the form factor too much.
27:47
Josh: Okay, now I want to talk about timelines. And I know these are really hard and fuzzy.
27:50
Josh: But you mentioned a bit earlier that humanoid robots that look and feel just
27:55
Josh: like humans, that line that we drew, that probably takes decades.
27:57
Josh: So this will take less than decades, I'm going to assume.
28:01
Josh: And in fact, on the website, it says 2026 by the time we can expect,
28:04
Josh: I guess, the first version.
28:06
Josh: So what does it look like? I mean, in this category specifically,
28:09
Josh: but broadly speaking, how long is it until the average person do you think can
28:12
Josh: expect to have a robot inside of their home?
28:15
Josh: Is it going to be next year? Is it going to be in the next five years, decade?
28:19
Aaron Tan: Yeah. I mean, if you're talking about like mainstream adoption,
28:22
Aaron Tan: that's going to take at least a decade, right?
28:23
Aaron Tan: I think the last time the home received like a huge sort of like mass tech adoption
28:29
Aaron Tan: was in the 50s, where things like the microwave and all these kind of like appliances
28:35
Aaron Tan: made like a huge adoption.
28:37
Aaron Tan: I think I saw a stat that was like before the 50s, it was like under 30% adoption.
28:41
Aaron Tan: After the 50s, it was like above 80% adoption or something like that.
28:43
Aaron Tan: But it did take over like that decade.
28:45
Aaron Tan: Uh for us uh we will
28:48
Aaron Tan: ship our robots uh actually the there's an
28:51
Aaron Tan: early beta tester club now and they're going to get there six months from now
28:53
Aaron Tan: and these are primarily folks in the bay area that have reached out specifically to
28:56
Aaron Tan: me um and we're basically trying going to
28:59
Aaron Tan: install i'll personally go to their homes and install these systems
29:02
Aaron Tan: for them um in the next six or
29:05
Aaron Tan: so months um and the goal is that 12 months from now uh
29:08
Aaron Tan: we have a pretty large wait list but we're just basically going to sort of like
29:13
Aaron Tan: get people off of that main wait list starting 12 months from now at a sort
29:18
Aaron Tan: of a slow pace probably geographically closer to the bay area first um and then
29:22
Aaron Tan: expand uh sort of nationwide from there that's
29:27
Josh: Exciting so now i want to ask how practical is it
29:29
Josh: are they going to look like the arms in this video because i'm assuming that
29:32
Josh: was a rendering right and you guys are building and designing and i know a lot
29:35
Josh: of times to create the actual thing in a factory is a lot harder than designing
29:39
Josh: the pixels on a screen so what does the process look like to actually make it
29:42
Josh: look as elegant as the lamps that you showed in the rendering?
29:45
Josh: And do you feel confident about your ability to get there?
29:48
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. So those renderings are designed by our engineers.
29:52
Aaron Tan: And so they're not, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier,
29:55
Aaron Tan: some people thought that they were like AI generated videos,
29:57
Aaron Tan: but I always say I wish it was AI generated so I didn't have to pay so much money for it.
30:01
Aaron Tan: Yeah, I'm sure. Money was spent, it was beautiful.
30:04
Aaron Tan: But yes, thank you. It will get pretty close to it. I have like a segment of the arm here.
30:12
Aaron Tan: And this is spec to sort of the actual width of the shaft.
30:18
Aaron Tan: So that's how it will be um these are like sort of the lampids and these are actually the robotic
30:25
Aaron Tan: um yeah so it will be uh roughly that
30:29
Aaron Tan: it might be a little bit shorter um and the
30:32
Aaron Tan: claws i think i don't want to call them claws because it might scare people
30:35
Aaron Tan: but uh the artists um i didn't
30:38
Aaron Tan: it was my fault because i didn't catch it the the claws look a bit metallic
30:41
Aaron Tan: uh in the video uh but they're not meant to be metallic they're supposed to
30:45
Aaron Tan: be like rubberish um so some people i pointed that out saying they look almost
30:49
Aaron Tan: like surgical tools i'm like in phase three they'll start looking a little bit
30:54
Aaron Tan: more like surgical tools but not right now i
30:56
Josh: Admire the fact that you are making the home look different for the first time
30:59
Josh: in 50 years i think a lot of the stagnation has happened in this where we talk
31:03
Josh: about this a lot in the world of of atoms where just if you if i go into my
31:07
Josh: grandmother's house it hasn't changed in 50 years but it doesn't look like it
31:10
Josh: doesn't belong in this century,
31:12
Josh: aside from like maybe the plastic on the couch and like some outdated ornamentaries.
31:15
Josh: But in terms of technology, I mean, there's a TV on the wall,
31:18
Josh: there's a microwave in the kitchen.
31:19
Josh: It's all relatively the same. And I think a huge part that moves us forward
31:23
Josh: into this future looking like the future is robots.
31:26
Josh: And a big part of that is robots in our home. It's making us feel more comfortable
31:29
Josh: with them around. It's making them beautiful, but functional.
31:33
Josh: And they're there to serve a purpose and to just kind of enhance everyone's life.
31:39
Josh: So I really admire you for trying to tackle this problem, for doing it in a
31:43
Josh: way that looks so great, for hopefully shipping these out the door very soon.
31:46
Josh: Is there anything other parting words you want to share? How people can get
31:49
Josh: access to them, get on the pre-order line, what they can expect?
31:53
Aaron Tan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, just a little bit on that point.
31:56
Aaron Tan: I think somebody mentioned to me very recently, he's like, you know,
31:59
Aaron Tan: the only new device between my house and my grandma's house is an air fryer.
32:05
Aaron Tan: That was like the latest breakthrough in the home, which I thought was kind
32:10
Aaron Tan: of funny because like you said, TVs existed, refrigerators existed and all these other things.
32:14
Aaron Tan: So, yeah, so we're hopefully we're we're hopefully, you know,
32:18
Aaron Tan: entering into a new era where home robotics will make the next big paradigm
32:23
Aaron Tan: shift in the home. And we want to be a part of that.
32:26
Aaron Tan: And we want to do that in a way that makes people feel comfortable.
32:29
Aaron Tan: We want to do that in a way where it makes your at least your home still looking
32:32
Aaron Tan: like a, you know, like a home and beautiful and all that kind of stuff.
32:37
Aaron Tan: So. So, yeah, happy to happy to be on on the pod today.
32:42
Aaron Tan: If anybody listening is interested you can check us out at Sincere AI on X on
32:49
Aaron Tan: Twitter that's where we typically post our updates Alright,
32:54
Ejaaz: Well this has been super exciting, I feel like we're at like an iPhone moment,
32:59
Ejaaz: I know you haven't released the product yet but we're getting there,
33:02
Ejaaz: this is the first robot, as Josh said, kind of like that appealed to me and
33:06
Ejaaz: that I would willingly have in my home and that I think my girlfriend would
33:08
Ejaaz: be chill about having in my home as well versus some six foot five humanoid robot.
33:13
Ejaaz: It sounds like these robots aren't just going to be used for practicality,
33:19
Ejaaz: so chores around the house, but also potentially leisure in the form of massages
33:24
Ejaaz: and also vital health care in the form of like doctor-like work that they can remotely access.
33:29
Ejaaz: So all around, this has been a super cool conversation.
33:32
Ejaaz: And Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. For the listeners,
33:36
Ejaaz: if you enjoyed this, please like, subscribe and share it with all your friends.
33:39
Ejaaz: And we'll see you on the next one.
33:42
Josh: Awesome. See you guys.
33:43
Aaron Tan: Thank you. Bye-bye.
33:46
Music: Music