Should consumer robotics be available by subscription?

robotics
Image credit: Phonlamai Photo / Shutterstock.com

The consumer robotics market is looking forward to healthy growth over the next five years. This is according to a new study by Juniper Research, who predict that 74 million consumer robots will be shipped in 2024, compared to approximately 24 million in 2019.

The main driver of the consumer robotics market is – not surprisingly – domestic. Items such as robotic vacuums, lawnmowers and mops are definitely the most popular.

All looks rosy in the consumer robotics world, or so you might think.

The study does have several cautionary notes however.

With high price tags, vendors should be exploring ways to diversify.

Having a robotic lawnmower or vacuum is one thing but even these kinds of device need constant evolution. So, for instance, a lawnmower should evolve into a device that looks after a whole range of garden maintenance jobs. And the vacuum should morph into a device that looks after a range of domestic jobs and could even integrated with existing or future digital home assistants.

This evolution in robotics must fund constant investment in security as it is now clear that home devices are a potential attack vector for hackers – and who wants your garden maintenance robot running amok with the shears or the domestic robot listening in to your private life.

This brings us to the subscription idea.

If a subscription model superceded the high price single purchase idea, it would fund the innovations discussed, enable customers to have regular upgrades and allow vendors to invest in the security systems and processes that are not in their comfort zone.

As with everything digital, the future looks bright but we must be prepared for any and every eventuality, while constantly innovating.

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