Colin Angle Quotes

The idea that a robot will become more aware of its environment, that telling it to ‘go to the kitchen‘ means something – navigation and understanding of the environment is a robot problem. Those are the technological frontiers of the robotics industry.

Robotics has been around forever, and it’s been the next big thing forever, and it is so exciting and compelling that it’s easy to get carried away. People almost always do, and that’s one of the things that has held back the industry.

My Roomba’s name is Roswell. There is the moment when you are sitting on the couch and Roomba turns itself on and goes out and starts working. You really appreciate it because it works hard for you, and it deserves some kind of recognition.

I grew up mostly in Schenectady, N.Y. From an early age, building and creating things was a real passion for me.

Starting out, iRobot was not an economic rocket ship. It took six and a half years before we had enough money in the bank at the beginning of each month to make payroll. We always made it – we paid salaries at the end of the month, and I always had four weeks to figure things out.

It’s hard not to love Roomba. Roomba had such an amazing impact on the field. When we launched, we asked people, ‘Is it a robot?’ and got an overwhelming no – ‘robots‘ have arms and legs; they command data. There was a very strong perception that robots had to look like people.

In the beginning of Roomba, we all took turns answering the support line. Once, a woman called and explained that her robot had a defective motor. I said, ‘Send it back. We’ll send you a new one.’ She said, ‘No – I’m not sending you Rosie.’

When I was building robots in the early 1990s, the problems of voice recognition, image understanding, VOIP, even touchscreen technologies – these were robotics problems.

You’re not going to talk to your vacuum cleaning robot: in fact, you may never see your vacuum cleaning robot because, ideally, you come home every day and your floors are freshly vacuumed.

We’re going to have robots in the home, but they’re not going to be walking. Legs are complicated, unreliable and costly. Robots are going to look and be designed to meet the function they’re supposed to perform. People will still name them and connect with them.

Our 2015 financial performance will continue to be driven by our Home Robot business. Home Robot revenue is expected to grow 10% to 12% in 2015 and comprise 90% of total company revenue.

In the smart home of the future, there should be a robot designed to talk to you. With enough display technology, connectivity, and voice recognition, this human-interface robot or head-of-household robot will serve as a portal to the digital domain. It becomes your interface to your robot-enabled home.

Robotic toys can be very interesting, but it is important that the toy not ‘dictate‘ how the child should play with it. Rather, it should take its cues from the child and enhance, teach, and enrich the play experience. We incorporated some of these features into a robotic baby doll we built for Hasbro in 1999.

In the original ‘Star Wars‘ movie, there is a small toaster-sized and shaped robot on the Death Star that guides Stormtroopers to where they need to go. I always liked that robot because I could imagine how to build it – and it served a real purpose.

We will not have humanoid androids. It’s interesting: when you start trying to make robots look more human, you end up making them look more grotesque. It takes very little to go from super-attractive robot to hideous robot.

One of the big things coming out of healthcare reform is a thing called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS) which is a mechanism to reimburse people staying at home for technology and services that allow them to stay at home.

People are fascinated by robots because they’re machines that can mimic life.

I thought boxes were the best toy. When my parents got a new car, I ran to my mother and said, ‘Did it come in a box?’

Did Google need to make robot cars in order to make Streetview work? Absolutely not. It’s the equivalent of saying you need a walking robot in order to push an upright vacuum cleaner. It’s gratuitous robotics!

The reason it has taken so long for the robotics industry to move forward is because people keep trying to make something that is cool but difficult to achieve rather than trying to find solutions to actual human problems. Technology can be extremely expensive if you don’t focus.

If you ask the typical two- or three-year-old or a teenager what a robot is, they will think about a humanoid that does my homework for me or walks the dog. When I go and talk to kids and pull out the Roomba, it’s not this big ‘Wow!’ moment.

I learned to canoe at summer camp and thought I’d pursue Olympic whitewater canoeing. In my senior year of high school, I instead decided to attend M.I.T. I like to say I’ve had only two jobs in my life: whitewater canoeing instructor and wilderness guide in college, and C.E.O. of iRobot.

The name iRobot comes from ‘Internet-connected robot.’

The ideal vacuum cleaner would be one you never see. It needs to not just be a cool gadget, but a product that cleans your floor correctly. I can imagine people having a cupboard full of robots that only come out when you need them to fulfil a specific purpose.

In the end, robots do things that people can do. So there is a cost above which you can hire somebody to do it, and that bounds the opportunity.