Hi!
I'm looking for a robot to keep an eye on my flat while I'm away.
The criteria I came up with were fairly standard; must be mobile, with either autonomous navigation or joystick control; must have vision that can be fed back to a (remote) user; must have WiFi for remote control; and, if possible, must be able to self-charge.
Really, I just want something to be able to direct around my house and take a look around, say, if I'm away from home for a while - most likely by logging into my home server remotely, and controlling the robot via WiFi.
Anyway, I looked and looked. The Evolution ER-1 seemed a possible, but the vision seems limited and it doesn't self charge. There is a WiFi
4x4 robot made by a company in France, but I got the impression it's more for security teams; not sure about the lead-acid batteries. Although the world seems to be full of cheap WiFi these days, no-one seems to have used it for building such a platform....And then I stumbled across the Aibo ERS-7. It is fairly autonomous. It can self-charge (maybe not 100% reliably, but not bad). It has vision, can have a WiFi module, and a live video feed can be viewed.
On the downside, it's motion and range, I guess, are low; it costs a small fortune; and there's no way around the AI construct, such that I would have to raise it and train it for a few weeks before I could actually use it, rather than just instructing it to move to a point and show a video feed. And if it doesn't feel like it, then I'm stuffed. Can't I brainwash it?!?
Still.. the Aibo seems the current best option for this. But before I start scrimping and saving, can anyone who had similar reqs offer their opinion?
Damian