Kuri the robot, a $700 home companion, is terminated

Kuri the robot, a $700 home companion, is terminated

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New at CES 2017 – a new kind of personal robot, Kuri, from Mayfield Robotics. Jefferson Graham previews on #TalkingTech.

Farewell, Kuri, we hardly knew you.

Kuri the rolling, talking, video-capturing robot — who made its debut at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show — has been terminated.

Mayfield Robotics, the Redwood City, California manufacturer, has announced it is ceasing production of Kuri robots and will pause its operations to “evaluate the company’s path forward.”

Marketed as a home companion, priced at $700, Kuri was an app-driven robot that could take videos with its high-def camera, play music and dance.

USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham, who met up with Kuri a year ago, described the robot as “an Amazon Echo with wheels and eyes” that “can do all the things Alexa or Google Home can do now — answer trivia questions, play music, run your smart home and a little more. Using the built-in 1080p camera, Kuri can also take, for instance, cat videos while you’re away and play them for you.”

Kuri, a home robot being launched at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show by Mayfield Robotics. (Photo11: Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY)

Kuri got around, too. After its first public appearance at CES, the robot showed up at other hip gatherings such as the Sundance Film Festival, South By Southwest and TED conferences.

Mayfield Robotics, which launched three years ago as part of home appliance maker Bosch, has been “constantly looking for the best paths to achieve scale and continue to advance our innovative technology,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday. “Typically, startups in the Bosch Startup Platform are integrated into existing Bosch business units, but after extensive review, there was not a business fit within Bosch to support and scale our business.”

The company did not disclose how many Kuri robots were purchased or manufactured. Any customers who have placed pre-order deposits will get refunds, Mayfield Robotics says.

“It’s an understatement to say that we are all hugely disappointed by this pause to operations,” the company said. “We remain proud of the work we’ve done to push home robotics forward.”

So let’s pour one out for Kuri, who didn’t exist around long enough to infiltrate many of our homes.

More: Meet Kuri, one of many robots debuting at CES 2017

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

 

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By |2019-02-26T21:21:31-05:00February 26th, 2019|Robotics|0 Comments

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