Why Co-Parenting With Telepresence Robots Could Be a Fantastic Idea

Heather Knight for IEESpectrum:  There’s always something heart-wrenching when parents have to be far away from their children. Sometimes parents travel. Sometimes separated parents split time with the kids.

Maybe telepresence robots can help.

This article explores some of the potential benefits and challenges of using telepresence robots as a co-parenting tool. To my knowledge, there is only one research instance of this [pdf], so a lot of questions remain to be answered. What is clear is that there are reasons why co-parenting with telepresence robots could be a fantastic idea, and reasons that this could be terrible. Let’s start with the fantastic.

Why Robots Are Better Than Skype

Let’s review some shortcomings of Skype, FaceTime, and similar applications when they are used for communicating with younger children.

Screens feel distant: The benefit of robots over screen-based communication is that they are physically present. A six-month-old might ignore mommy or daddy on the screen, but find parent-robot delightful. A more companionable parent “avatar” might help distant parents feel closer to their kids. The robot doesn’t need to be particularly complex — Skype-on-a-stick is a great way to begin —because  just the fact that it can move through the space will change the way kids interact with it.  Full Article:

Comments (0)

This post does not have any comments. Be the first to leave a comment below.


Post A Comment

You must be logged in before you can post a comment. Login now.

Featured Product

Schmalz Technology Development - The Right Gripper for Every Task

Schmalz Technology Development - The Right Gripper for Every Task

In order to interact with their environment and perform the tasks, lightweight robots, like all industrial robots, depend on tools - and in many cases these are vacuum grippers. These form the interface to the workpiece and are therefore a decisive part of the overall system. With their help, the robots can pick up, move, position, process, sort, stack and deposit a wide variety of goods and components. Vacuum gripping systems allow particularly gentle handling of workpieces, a compact and space-saving system design and gripping from above. Precisely because the object does not have to be gripped, the vacuum suction cupenables gapless positioning next to each other.