TL;DR
The price of a humanoid robot for the home just fell into the high four figures. StarBot Robotics, a Santa Barbara start-up, says its Spark humanoid is on sale for $7,999: a robot about 3 feet tall with 22 movable joints, built entirely in the United States, according to the company. Spark is sold as a companion and learning machine for families, schools and developers, not as a chore robot. Still, it costs well under half the $20,000 asked for the first full-size home humanoids, and it is made in America at a time when new foreign-made robot models cannot win U.S. approval to be sold here. Every cheaper robot body brings the household robot a step closer to an ordinary price. To see our odds on when a chore-doing humanoid sells for under $10,000, and the timeline of breakthroughs that gets there, subscribe.
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