Building a Smart Robot for Seniors

Danielle Ishak spends her days developing a kind of domestic robot plucked from a science-fiction movie. The biggest problem facing the 28-year-old robotics researcher is figuring out whether people might actually want one in their homes.

This year hasn’t been especially encouraging in the nascent industry of home robotics. One startup founded by a pair of former Google colleagues, called TickTock, experimented with robot vacuums, teaching aids for kids and a video-chat machine on wheels. TickTock gave up on its dream of building a consumer robot after a year. Another company, Boston-based Jibo Inc., had hired as many as 100 workers to build a social robot for the home but ended up cutting most of its staff, local news website BostInno reported in June. The next month, Mayfield Robotics halted production of Kuri, an autonomous snowman on wheels with endearingly expressive eyes. By August, Mayfield said it was shutting down altogether.