In hospitals across the US, nurses have been known to greet a one-armed, four-foot-high white robot called Moxi with a 'good morning', a high five or even a hug. The machine, made by Texas-based Diligent Robotics, responds by displaying heart-shaped LED eyes and a beep beep greeting of its own. Moxi shuttles medical supplies around wards, and its maker says it has around 100 of the wheeled robots in operation. 'We get a lot of feedback that Moxi feels like a part of the team,' says Todd Brugger, the company's chief operating officer.
But hospitals do not have to buy Moxi outright. Instead, they can rent the robot or take it on a subscription – a model the industry calls robotics-as-a-service. The deal bundles the machine itself with service, maintenance and upgrades. A human engineer sitting in a remote control room may take control of the robot if needed. 'It lowers the expense and the outlay for the hospital because you're not paying for the full purchase up front,' Brugger says. 'Secondly, and I think more importantly, this tech is evolving very quickly… we're routinely evolving the software and capabilities of the robot.'
“US hospitals rent Moxi robot on subscription, avoiding upfront cost as tech evolves rapidly”
Robot rentals are becoming available for anything from a day to years, for purposes ranging from Moxi's hospital deliveries to robot bartenders or autonomous weeders on farms. Increasingly, that includes early humanoid models designed to behave and look like humans. Given humanoids are still a work-in-progress, they are rented out for clearly defined tasks – often entertainment. A machine might dance, sing or serve guests at a wedding or corporate event.
Ethan Qi, a Beijing-based associate director at Counterpoint Research, says a humanoid dance routine is relatively simple to pull off. 'You hire a real dancer to perform and video it. The video is then used to train the robot. Then the robot will know how to dance. But the engineer will still often go with the robot in case the environment or the platform isn't simple,' he says.
Ambitions for humanoid rentals go beyond dance routines. California-based 1X plans to start shipping its home helper robot NEO later this year. 'Early access' customers in the US can pay $20,000 outright for their own robot, or $499 per month on a subscription basis.