In hospitals across the US, a one-armed, four-foot-high white robot called Moxi has become part of the team. Nurses greet it with a hug or a high five; it responds with heart-shaped LED eyes and a beep. Moxi shuttles medical supplies, but its maker Diligent Robotics doesn’t sell it outright. Instead, hospitals rent it on a subscription – a model known as robotics-as-a-service. ‘It lowers the expense and the outlay for the hospital because you’re not paying for the full purchase up front,’ says Todd Brugger, chief operating officer at the Texas-based company. ‘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 now available for anything from a day to years, for tasks ranging from hospital deliveries to bartending and weeding farms. Increasingly, this includes early humanoid models designed to behave like humans. Given they are still a work-in-progress, they are rented for clearly defined tasks – often entertainment. A humanoid might dance, sing, or serve guests at a wedding or corporate event. ‘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,’ explains Ethan Qi, a Beijing-based associate director at Counterpoint Research. ‘But the engineer will still often go with the robot in case the environment or the platform isn’t simple.’
“Hospitals and businesses increasingly rent robots like Moxi and humanoids on subscription, avoiding high upfront costs.”
Ambitions go beyond dance routines shared on social media. 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. As robotics evolves faster than ever, renting may be the smarter way to keep up.