Samsung Electronics has had an eye on the consumer-grade robotics niche for a while now, and during CES 2023, the company said it views robots as “a new growth engine.” But beyond releasing smart vacuum cleaners, Samsung’s more ambitious AI-powered prototype robots haven’t truly materialized. The tech giant plans to change this before the end of the year.
“We plan to release a human assistant robot called EX1 within this year,” vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics, Han Jong-hee, said at a press conference in Las Vegas. (via Pulse)
The company already has a device under its belt called “EX1,” which is a decade-old digital camera. Evidently, the new EX1 coming this year would be a completely different kind of product, i.e., a “human assistant robot,” albeit its capabilities remain unknown. However, past concept robots presented by Samsung at CES may hold some clues.
Samsung Bot Handy — becoming a reality after all?
Samsung didn’t have any new robot concepts to reveal at CES 2023, but some of you might recall that the company unveiled the Bot Handy and the JetBot 90 AI+ at CES 2021. The JetBot 90 AI+ was released to the market as an AI-powered vacuum cleaner, while the Bot Handy has yet to become an actual product that people can purchase.
The latter robot, showcased in concept videos, was labeled a household robot capable of washing dishes, doing laundry, pouring wine for the owner, and performing other such activities. It was never released, but it may have given us a rough preview of what the EX1 human assistant robot might be. Unfortunately, the original concept videos on YouTube seem to have been removed.
We’re not entirely sure if the EX1 has roots in the Bot Handy, but the point is that Samsung has entertained the idea of creating a human assistant robot for some time. We’ll just have to wait a little longer until Samsung hopefully releases the EX1 to the market to see if it resembles the Bot Handy in any way.
Samsung Electronics now views robots as a potential new revenue stream, and last year, it promoted its robot business task force to a higher level. Last week, Samsung invested 59 billion won (~$47 million) in Rainbow Robotics.
