This isn’t a household robot. It’s barely a robot at all. It can’t move itself. It can pivot its head and move its “arms “ on one axis, but it can’t manipulate anything at all.
It’s a poorly made “AI” camera without decent audio with two fake arms that can kind of gesticulate but not do anything, that looks like a much cooler robot than it is.
This can be built with a a BOM cost of around $30 total, plus 3d printing filament. I know because one of the things we are building actually has a similar processor with an npu as well as an esp32 with wifi/BT and mcu functionality, SD card, camera, 9dof gyro/mag, barometric sensor, mic, audio amplifier and speaker, as well as a 1500 pixel SPAD sensor. Cheap servos are $3 each.
Actually to build this and get image recognition you could just use a esp32-p4/c6 module and run it in python without Linux, BOM cost more like $20
Chinese clones of Arduinos are normally between 3x-6x cheaper, and if your project uses dozens or hundreds or thousands of them, especially in developing countries, that's a major price delta.
I assume at those scales it quickly becomes economical to design a custom board instead of using modules that are probably seated on cheap custom PCBs anyways.
If you have a bit of time to learn the skills, it’s economical to design a custom board even for 5-10 units. An integrated controller module like an ESP32 can basically just be plonked onto a board with a voltage regulator and used like an Arduino.
A lot. The official uno r3 is around $30 while the clone can be as cheap as $5.
Which does not sound much, but to someone living in less developed country, that matters a lot
On a $1000 hacker project that's only a 2% percent cost increase.
In most of the world $1000 is startup capital, not a hobby project
Regardless of where you live - you're not building a household robot for much less than that.
This isn’t a household robot. It’s barely a robot at all. It can’t move itself. It can pivot its head and move its “arms “ on one axis, but it can’t manipulate anything at all.
It’s a poorly made “AI” camera without decent audio with two fake arms that can kind of gesticulate but not do anything, that looks like a much cooler robot than it is.
This can be built with a a BOM cost of around $30 total, plus 3d printing filament. I know because one of the things we are building actually has a similar processor with an npu as well as an esp32 with wifi/BT and mcu functionality, SD card, camera, 9dof gyro/mag, barometric sensor, mic, audio amplifier and speaker, as well as a 1500 pixel SPAD sensor. Cheap servos are $3 each.
Actually to build this and get image recognition you could just use a esp32-p4/c6 module and run it in python without Linux, BOM cost more like $20
I’m sure the Arduino isn’t the only thing you’d save money on with this approach. Keeping the same ratios, it’s a 600% cost increase.
Not every project costs $1000. In fact, most arduino project i saw cost less than $200 in BOM.
Chinese clones of Arduinos are normally between 3x-6x cheaper, and if your project uses dozens or hundreds or thousands of them, especially in developing countries, that's a major price delta.
I assume at those scales it quickly becomes economical to design a custom board instead of using modules that are probably seated on cheap custom PCBs anyways.
If you have a bit of time to learn the skills, it’s economical to design a custom board even for 5-10 units. An integrated controller module like an ESP32 can basically just be plonked onto a board with a voltage regulator and used like an Arduino.
Board or not, it's the chip here that is expensive.