ROBOT INVASION has already STARTED in HIPSTERLAND

Over the last couple of years The Reg has occasionally reported on “telepresence robots”, devices that beam your beaming smile onto a monitor carried atop a motorised trolley that rolls around a remote office.

The idea is that telepresence is all well and good, but your co-workers aren't going to crowd around a monitor to chat when you make a virtual visit. Telepresence bots are mobile, so give you the chance to roam around a remote office and drop into colleagues' cubicles to “say hi!” just like you would if you'd travelled through meatspace.

A company called Beam led the charge with the idea back in 2012, before Cisco teamed with iRobot to advance the idea. We bumped into Beam again at this year's CES, where it staffed its booth entirely with telepresence bots. Which was just a bit weird, like the whole concept of telepresence robots.

Or so your correspondent thought before today's release, by ABI Research of a publication titled “Mobile Robotic Telepresence Systems” in which the analyst firms says there's a real market for these things.

The firm's practice director for robotics, Dan Kara, has put his name to canned quotes suggesting that “the price and performance level of mobile robotic telepresence systems have greatly improved their overall value proposition, and as a result the technology is generating interest from businesses and public entities alike.”

The firm says telepresence bots will succeed in “... healthcare, business management, retail, facilities management and operations, MRO, and manufacturing sectors for applications where independent mobility and embodied presence are called for, and where high levels of social interaction are required.”

And by succeed , the firm means grow from 2014 sales of US$42 million to 2019 sales of US$372 million.

That level of sales won't make the 'bots mainstream, as ABI suggests the time is right for “Organizations that are comfortable with the risk of early-stage adoption” to make a purchase. ®