A $20,000 robot butler: former Boston Dynamics engineer unveils Voxel

New York robotics start-up Tuesday Labs has unveiled its home robot Voxel and is taking reservations for the first series. Founder and CEO Ros Shinkle previously worked as a robotics engineer at Boston Dynamics. Voxel is meant to put belongings back in their places, show where a misplaced item was last seen, fetch things such as books, drinks or keys, and water plants. Shinkle calls it a "droid butler".

The robot walks on two legs and has two arms with seven degrees of freedom each plus simple grippers; it sees with stereo cameras. Its movements are first created as 3D animation – according to Tech Times by artists with Pixar experience – and then transferred to the real robot using machine learning.

The estimated purchase price is 20,000 dollars, and a reservation costs a refundable 200 dollars. Deliveries are planned for 2028 in the US, possibly later and initially only in selected areas. Tuesday Labs itself describes Voxel as a concept and prototype whose appearance and capabilities may still change significantly.