Earlier this year, we informed you about Company Six (CO6), a spin-off of an American company Sphero known for its toys and robotic balls. The company is working on a situation awareness robot for first responders and professionals with dangerous or difficult jobs. The startup has now unveiled its first creation, a rugged one pound, throwable, video-streaming robot called ReadySight that can be tossed into difficult situations.
Weighing in at 1lb and roughly the size of a 16oz can, ReadySight is a personal robot that’s built to go anywhere you go, and some places you can’t. ReadySight rolls on what looks like a couple of miniature tractor tires and is equipped with high-torque motors powerful enough to tackle multiple terrain types and obstacles – including the most difficult blockages, fires, flooding, battlefields, and more.
The robot is powered by a 5200 mAh battery and is ready for a hard day or night’s work. It streams live video from the scene over a dedicated first-responder network. ReadySight can also connect to commercial LTE and emergency response networks and transmit video streams from its 120-degree camera. Controlled by the user’s smartphone, ReadySight can stream to unlimited web viewers and range, so whether they are across town in a command center or across the globe, everyone is getting the information they need to make decisions in real-time.
A robot built for a hard day’s work. ReadySight is IP65 dust and water-resistant. This robot is impact and drop resistant as well, so you place or throw it anywhere it needs to be. It also has an integrated microphone and speaker for two-way audio transmission, a sensor for navigation, and an interchangeable lens, and it can also illuminate its surroundings with infrared and white LEDs.
“Making a small, portable, video-enabled robot has really been a goal of our founding team since 2012 while we were at Sphero – but the networks and core technology simply were not ready,” said Jim Booth CEO of Company Six. “Having used robots in the field while in the Army, they can be large, expensive and difficult to operate. What we’ve built is unlike any tool out there at a fraction of the price – truly to the point that they can be expendable if necessary.“
CO6 said ReadySight has an endless number of use cases from accident investigation, exploring tight or unknown spaces before someone enters, even acting as a sentry to keep eyes on a critical area such as a crime scene.
Many technical details of the novelty, including the price, are not yet known. The company plans to start taking reservations with deposits in Q1 of 2021 and ship the first units in Q3 of 2021.
