In hospitals across the US, patients and staff have become accustomed to seeing a one-armed, four-foot high, friendly-looking white robot going about its business. Nurses have been known to greet Moxi, as the robot is called by its maker Diligent Robotics, with a "good morning", a high five or even a hug. Moxi – which shuttles medical supplies around hospitals – might respond by displaying its heart-shaped LED eyes and a beep beep greeting of its own.
But bringing Moxi into a hospital doesn't mean buying one outright. Instead, it is among robots available to rent or on a subscription basis, in a model known as robotics-as-a-service. Todd Brugger, chief operating officer at the Texas-based Diligent Robotics, which has around 100 wheeled Moxi robots in operation, says: "We get a lot of feedback that Moxi feels like a part of the team." As well as the robot itself, service, maintenance and upgrades are bundled into the deal. A human engineer sitting in a remote control room may be on hand to take control if needed.
“Robots like Moxi are now available to rent in hospitals, with humanoid rentals for entertainment and home use emerging.”
Brugger explains the advantage: "It lowers the expense and the outlay for the hospital because you're not paying for the full purchase up front. Secondly, and I think more importantly, this tech is evolving very quickly… we're routinely evolving the software and capabilities of the robot."
Robot rentals are becoming available for anything from a day to years for a variety of purposes, from Moxi's hospital deliveries to robot bartenders or autonomous weeders for farms. Increasingly this includes early humanoid models, designed to behave and look like humans, and operate in environments designed for people. Given humanoids are still a work-in-progress, they are currently rented out for clearly defined tasks – often entertainment. Depending on the model, 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 an act like 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 entertaining dance routines. California-based 1X plans to start shipping its home helper robot NEO later this year. "Early access" customers in the US can either pay $20,000 (£15,000) outright for their own robot, or $499 (£378) per month on a subscription basis. The question remains: will such a model take off in the UK, where hospitals and households might soon have their own robotic helpers – rented, not owned?