Is this life-sized robot the 'ultimate' work-from-home gadget? To find out, we drove it around our New York office
Is the Ohmni Robot the future of working from home?
This mobile talking robot is basically a walking Zoom call. The human-sized machine, designed by OhmniLabs, has a computer-controlled set of rolling “legs” — plus a “neck” that lets you move around and interact with other people.
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You can control everything from a computer screen. That means you can call into your office or classroom from home and still get the experience of actually being there — interacting and moving around in real-time. The robot even has a clothing rack so that you can dress it up like a real person.
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Getting the full office experience while lying at home in your pajamas? It almost sounds too good to be true. That’s why we knew we had to try this thing out ourselves.
Luckily, the people over at OhmniLabs were kind enough to let us borrow one. So, we dressed the robot up in some ITK gear and took it for a spin around the office to see if it really works as well as being there in person.
To test that, we decided to put the robot through a full workday at ITK. To see how it performed, check out the video above or keep reading below.
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Is the Ohmni Robot the ‘ultimate’ work-from-home device?
With our robot in the office and our editor controlling it from his laptop at home, we were ready to start our day. We decided to test this robot on three main factors: versatility, ease of use and personability.
Versatility: To test how much the robot could do, we gave it five tasks — all of which our editor would do during a typical day at the office. First, we rolled into a desk to start the day. Then we led a morning meeting before heading off to the coffee bar for some small talk. Next, we took a stroll around the office before finally heading over to work on another episode of Tried It. The robot managed all five tasks, so we gave it a 5/5 score here.
Ease of use: Here, we wanted to judge the robot on how easy it is to use from home. Despite some occasional Wi-Fi struggles, the controls are basically like a simple video game. You can roll around with the arrow keys and even adjust your “neck” by clicking wherever you want to look. 4/5.
Personability: Lastly, we had to see how the rest of the ITK team liked working with the robot version of our editor. This thing was a real charmer: It waved hello to everyone in the morning and even helped celebrate a birthday. It’s not just like being there in person, but everyone did seem to enjoy it, so we’ll give it a 4/5.
Overall, we gave the robot a total of 13 out of 15 points. That’s a really strong grade. It’s hard to say if these things will be the future of working from home, but at ITK, the Ohmni Robot was a huge hit.
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