It has been a great year filled with advancements in technology, science, math, public relations, and go-to-market strategies for roboSculptor. Let me provide a brief recap and share the milestones we achieved in 2024 as we are in the first month of 2025.
Here’s what we have accomplished so far at roboSculptor:
Technical and product achievements:
1. The reaction time of our robotic massager has been reduced to 1,500 milliseconds.
What does it mean? Let’s say you are a patient receiving treatment. The only way to ensure a seamless massage experience is to control your body position in physical space in real time. Otherwise, a robot may continue treatment when you’re no longer in the correct position, which could lead to complications. To avoid this and make sure that patient is accurately at the right location and time, the following processes need to be carried out:
- Cloud of dots created by lidars;
- Pose detection;
- Pose analysis;
- Decision-making to treat further, correct, or stop;
- Robot command;
- Robot positioning check.
2. Massage menu is now filled with 5 new programs:
- Lymphatic drainage for the back;
- Healthy back care;
- Relaxation therapy;
- Toning and wellness massage;
- Light legs revitalization.
3. We almost finished with a prototype of our mobile app, and will be able to present it soon. It would allow clients to create a personal account, share data that help massagers to adapt programs to their personal needs, and book sessions choosing the most convenient date and time.
KEY NUMBERS
That is not it! Throughout last year, we
- attracted attention from 5 distributors from the US, Italy, South Africa, Greece, Germany, and the Netherlands;
- made to 7 shows, including IMCAS World Congress in Paris, Cosmoprof Worldwide in Bologna, Arab Health, Dubai Derma, and Future Hospitality Summit (FHS) in Dubai, FIBO in Cologne, Wellness Congress in Vienna;
roboSculptor at FHS World
- gained 2 awards, including BeautyMatter NEXT Award, and Wellness & Spa innovation award from German Wellness Society. Check more details here and here.
- Made more than 20 publications with a total 1.3 billion monthly views.
MUST READS
Below I gathered some other recent articles that you might find interesting too:
5 biggest robotics trends of 2024 by Robot Report. It covers the market segments that attracted the largest funding rounds last year, the types of robots that garnered significant attention, and the world regions where robotics sales unfortunately declined.
How robotic technologies are revolutionizing mechanotherapy. Here I explore how robotics are transforming the wellness industry which is a very conservative but very important market for us.
5 questions for robotics legend Ruzena Bajcsy. Truly legendary lady who was the first to propose the use of moving sensors instead of static cameras. This significantly improved the way robots interact with their environment.
Are the robots finally coming? A beautiful visual story by the Financial Times illustrates how advancements in AI have transformed the field of robotics and brought us closer to the worlds depicted in science fiction.
STORY OF THE WEEK
For those of you who are interested in a broader perspective and want to stay updated on developments in the robotics field, I highly recommend checking out the annual World Robotics 2024 report by the International Federation of Robotics. It outlines the current state of this fascinating market.
One of the most interesting trends is the continuous growth of professional service robots. In 2023, there was a 30 percent year-over-year growth, with 205,000 units sold. The segment for medical robots experienced an impressive 36 percent increase. In fact, the medical & healthcare area is in the top five application areas for professional and medical robots. The rest includes cleaning, hospitality, agriculture, and transportation & logistics. These results are promising (especially for us, given that we develop robotic devices for the medical & healthcare market) and we hope that this year will show an even larger increase.
Source: https://ifr.org/img/worldrobotics/Press_Conference_2024.pdf
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, as they say. So we should keep in mind that robotics is a challenging field. I recently published an article on Silicon Republic highlighting several issues hindering its development. I believe there are five main challenges:
1. Physical uncertainties meaning that the landscapes of our cities and our households are not yet ready for robots.
2. Mindsets of consumers who tend to rely on more familiar products, such as, for example, traditional vacuum cleaners instead of robotic options.
3. Working business models that contain entrepreneurs from adopting new technologies, including automation with robotics.
4. Economic factors such as fluctuations in market demand, regulatory changes, and unexpected geopolitical events that affect not only the robotics industry but many sectors.
5. Lack of data to train robots.
But hopefully we will be able to overcome these issues. For more details, read my article: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/challenges-robotic-development-research-investment
PODCASTS
In December, along with my colleague Yelena Kormilina, I also gave an interview for the podcast of Greg Torosian “Machine Minds.” Together, we discussed the journey of developing the roboSculptor, including the challenges we faced in creating a full-body massage device that operates safely, efficiently, and consistently. You can check it here.
Anyway, please let me know your thoughts on the future of robotic markets and the challenges that companies may face moving forward. They might give me ideas for next newsletters.
It is also a pleasure to wish you all the best in 2025. Let’s use this year for everyone’s benefit, including advancements in machine learning, AI, robotics, and all the tools that humanity has invented and will continue to invent. I wish you inspiration and courage to create and implement new tools, as well as to find applications for them wherever you see fit.
— Dennis Ledenkof, the founder and CEO at roboSculptor
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