While security robots have largely become a joke over the last few years, one organization, Cobalt Robotics, has raised $50+ million from top US VCs and is aiming to overcome such problems.
We spoke with Cobalt's CEO Travis Deyle to better understand their positioning, what they do differently vs companies that have struggled such as Knightscope, and their plans to scale up their business to become a major force in physical security.
We did a Beta with Cobalt at one of our sites last year and the platform worked reasonably well. An operator would call our SOC if they had any issues or problems that needed to be addressed in person. We would then send one of our folks over to follow up.
What we really wanted was integration into our access control system so an employee/visitor/contractor could "badge in" on the Cobalt unit and verify they were who they said they were (visual verification) and they had access to the area they were found. I also wanted the video to stream live into our SOC or at least be recorded directly into our VMS.
The daily and weekly reports they sent were valuable, but nothing earth-shattering.
I like them alot, sorta creepy at night if you are not expecting it. The stream is live in the SOC, can also validate a card holders badge. Working on getting the robot to use the elevators and various blue tooth reader platforms.
In all seriousness, they say they are optimizing around a more customer service use case than defense but I am sure someone will sooner or later attach a gun to a robot. Speaking of which:
Cool unit, however the turrets need minimal angles to distribute combative fire. This unit is pointed in one direction, not many. Bad design IMHO, the intent is good but need more solutions other than 1970s looking tank.
That turret spins, raises/lowers and can go from pointing almost straight down to pointing straight up. So I think it has it covered or am I missing what you are saying?
The turret should have circular sector ⌔ weaponry such as a multiple imager camera has lenses like this cheap Samsung 360° camera. This design minimizes the mechanical traversal (rotation or gimble) needed to line of site a new target.
If you want a killing machine give AI access to multiple field of views, targeting at the same time.
Good report. A ray of sun in an otherwise dismal GSX
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Comments (10)
Undisclosed End User #1
We did a Beta with Cobalt at one of our sites last year and the platform worked reasonably well. An operator would call our SOC if they had any issues or problems that needed to be addressed in person. We would then send one of our folks over to follow up.
What we really wanted was integration into our access control system so an employee/visitor/contractor could "badge in" on the Cobalt unit and verify they were who they said they were (visual verification) and they had access to the area they were found. I also wanted the video to stream live into our SOC or at least be recorded directly into our VMS.
The daily and weekly reports they sent were valuable, but nothing earth-shattering.
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Undisclosed #2
I like them alot, sorta creepy at night if you are not expecting it. The stream is live in the SOC, can also validate a card holders badge. Working on getting the robot to use the elevators and various blue tooth reader platforms.
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Jonathan Strauss
Good concept but why can't they add a self defense strobe to disable a potential physical threat?
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Lynn Harold
Since Cobalt says they're only focusing on indoor units, I thought you'd all like to see an outdoor unit: Extending Human Capabalities into Hazardous Environments | Precision Remotes
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Undisclosed End User #3
Good report. A ray of sun in an otherwise dismal GSX
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