In December of last year Unitree launched the world’s first app store for robots. Now there’s a second robot app store, from OpenMind, the robotics software company. OpenMind is launching the robot app store with partners including UBbtech, Agibot, Deep Robotics, Fourier, Booster, Dobot, LimX and Magic Lab, and the vision is that it will ultimately contain thousands of apps for robots that will help robot owners add aftermarket skills and abilities to their robots in a wide range of contexts.
“Computers and phones come with an operating system to provide the basics, but the real magic is the ability for everyone to personalize their phones and computers through apps and programs,” says Jan Liphardt, founder and CEO of OpenMind. “That’s how generic hardware comes to life and becomes your phone and your laptop. Your humanoid will be no different: thousands of apps, each representing skills from nursing and math education to cleaning and home safety, will give you almost unlimited choices.”
I recently interviewed Liphardt on the TechFirst podcast, where he shared that companionship, elder care, personalized education for kids, and home security are all things robots can do today, even if they can’t do all our home chores.
Many hardware platforms these days benefit from software updates long after the initial purchase price, upgrading capability and usefulness. Essentially, OpenMind is saying: why should robots be any different? The platform is built on OM1, OpenMind says. That’s a modular operating system that allows developers to build apps that package specific capabilities into distributable apps for multiple robot platforms, starting with humanoid and quadruped form factors.
The robot app store is currently live and available apps include:
- Omni-Guardian: an app to turn your “robot into a sentient companion and sentry” that can detect intruders.
- Nova: an app that “listens, sees, and moves to assist with daily tasks.”
- WALL-E: an app that allows your robot to collect digital artifacts by monitoring “Ethereum wallet activities” and sifting through Twitter (X?) streams.
- Luckandroll OM1: an app that helps robots “seamlessly interact with humans, coordinate with each other, and participate in real economic activity.”
- Guardian: an app that will follow you and take a selfie with you.
There are also plenty of low-effort apps: test apps, “my first app” apps, and others that do nothing of any obvious benefit. I don’t currently see a dishes app, so a robot could do the dishes, or a vacuuming app, so a robot could clean the house, or a laundry app.
That is, apparently, for the future.
“Things like wet-wiping your floor will happen at some point, but it’s not where the next big wave of robots will be focused,” Liphardt told me.
It’s worth remembering that the first major global app store, on Apple’s iOS platform, started with similarly low-effort apps, fart apps and other quirky, odd, test-type apps. It’s likely the quality will grow along with the volume of apps over time.
“Robots need a skill and cognition layer that evolves faster than hardware,” Liphardt says. “The App Store is how robots become universal platforms whose skills can change over time to fit your needs.”
According to OpenMind, its developer ecosystem now includes “more than 1,000 developers worldwide” and is open for additional developers and robot manufacturers.