OhmniLabs: Building Companionship through Telepresence Robots

A robot saving a human life sounds like a fictional reference than a reality, but little did one of the pilot program participants of Ohmni telepresence robots know about the impact that a robot could have in his ailing mother’s life. The worried son was trying to reach out to his mother who was suffering from an acute illness. Unable to reach her on the phone, he immediately logged on to the telepresence robot that he had left at home to take care of his mother. He quickly initiated a video call and drove the robot around the house only to find her in terrible pain. He immediately called 911, standing by his non-English speaking mother as she waited for the help to arrive. Recollecting the incident, Thuc Vu, one of the visionaries behind the indigenous telepresence robot says, “The story showed us the kind of value we can bring to our users and the amount of impact that we can have in their lives.”

As a serial entrepreneur, Thuc Vu has co-founded two other companies, subsequently selling one of them to Google. His third venture, OhmniLabs is a firm born out of the passion for robotics, energized by his friendship with the company’s co-founder Jared Go. The two former roommates time and again envisioned the possibility of general purpose robots that could help humans in the daily walks of life, while being cost-effective. “The cost of robots has always been high, but the value they deliver is comparatively low. Our goal was simple when we started this journey—make affordable robots that enable shared experiences which are delightful, engaging and spontaneous for people,” explains Vu. Having been in the entrepreneurial space for years, the leaders at OhmniLabs have had a clear understanding of prototyping and manufacturing processes, which has enabled them to reduce the cost of manufacturing overheads through technologies such as 3D printing.