Kuri

History

Mayfield Robotics, a Bosch-backed startup, announced Kuri in 2017. Designed as a friendly home companion, and priced at US $700, Kuri came with a built-in camera, microphones, speakers, and touch sensors. It also featured a laser-based sensor array for obstacle detection, localization, and navigation. The company had an experienced team of engineers who paid special attention to human-robot interaction. While they gave Kuri speech recognition, the robot didn't talk back, instead relying on a variety of chirps, beeps, and bloop noises and its expressive head and eyes to communicate. Despite initial excitement, Mayfield Robotics announced in 2018 that it would cease Kuri's manufacturing and refund customers who had pre-ordered the robot. In a statement, the company said that "after extensive review, there was not a business fit within Bosch to support and scale our business." The decision came as the market saw social home robots struggling to establish their value and functionality when compared to more affordable digital assistants.