Household robots at IFA: R1D2 does the laundry, R2D3 does the dishes

Robots can already vacuum and mop the floor or clean windows. But there are many more household chores that many people don't have the time or inclination to do. The Sharp brand's mixed range could soon include a series of household robots that use their gripping hands to take care of all kinds of tedious chores. At IFA 2025, Sharp presented prototypes of service robots that the San Francisco-based start-up OpenDroids is developing in partnership with the Japanese electronics company.

OpenDroids showed two robots that are as big as adults but designed to be more functional than humanoid. Instead of walking on two legs, they move on a base with wheels. This limits their radius of action to one floor if no elevator is available. However, this should make the design less prone to errors.

Universal gripper arms

Depending on the model, the bots have one or two gripper arms at shoulder height. These can move up and down on a rail between head and ankle height. The arms end in pincers with two to three fingers. Cameras and infrared sensors next to the grippers, a stereo camera on the arm rail, and fisheye cameras at the front and rear of the robot's column are designed to show it the way.

In principle, the gripper arms can be used universally. “With laundry and dishwashing, we are initially tackling two of the most unpopular household chores,” explained Sampreeth Radha Krishna, engineer at OpenDroids.

The robots can lift five kilos per arm. In a demo routine, the one-armed robot picked up a piece of laundry and placed it in a basket. This is the second generation of droids with one arm. R1D2 is therefore the working title of this prototype, which is based on Star Wars. The aim is for it to load clothes into a washing machine, take them out, fold them, and put them on the shelf. This already works well in a controlled test environment. Sampreeth Radha Krishna explained that the robot does not yet check the pockets for small items.

Next door, a two-armed robot called R2D3 was watching. It reached for dishes in a frozen gesture. Not on-site in Berlin, but in a video shown there, it packed plates into a dishwasher. Both robots park at a docking station after their work is done and recharge their batteries.

Paid subscription instead of human domestic help

The hardware is ready. OpenDroids is currently feeding the software with training data. It is to be powered by artificial intelligence, in line with current trends. The robots are to be set up and operated using a smartphone app. For low-threshold access, household members will be able to interact with the technology via text chat or voice commands. Variants of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini will be used in the substructure. Sampreeth Radha Krishna said that the robots will be able to provide voice feedback via a loudspeaker with either a male or female voice. Free access to the source code on GitHub will allow users to personalize the devices according to their wishes—provided they have the necessary technical understanding.

An exact launch date for R1D2 and R2D3 has not been set. If everything goes according to plan, the devices could be ready for the market next year. OpenDroids is aiming for a subscription model for 500 to 1000 US dollars per month. This should pay off for households that would otherwise spend a higher sum on human cleaning assistants and can therefore save money in this way. Sampreeth Radha Krishna does not want to rule out the possibility that older people may be unfamiliar with such technology. However, the robot engineer is optimistic that there are fewer reservations among younger target groups aged between 30 and 40.

(afl)