MIT’s $10,000 robotic furniture is making its way to small homes

By Mariella Moon From engadget

You can control the transforming cabinet with an app or your voice.

A few years ago, MIT designed a piece of furniture worth $10,000 — not because it’s made of luxury materials, but because it can transform at the press of a button. Now, that piece of robotic furniture called “Ori Systems” is available for pre-order, but only to large-scale development companies. Originally called CityHome, Ori is a single unit that looks like a large wooden cabinet meant for small homes, condos and apartments.

It was originally designed to respond to hand gestures until the team tested their prototypes out by renting them to Airbnb. The current Ori has a control interface with buttons you can push to eject the bed, to slide the bed inside the unit and to move the cabinet to make more space for the desk on the other side. Too lazy to stand up? You can also do all those things through Ori’s accompanying app or by using voice commands through Alexa.

Unfortunately, you can’t get this for yourself — Ori is only accepting pre-orders from large-scale development companies in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, DC, Vancouver, Miami and Columbus. Your best bet is to look for apartments with one in case you really like the idea of being able to customize your space.

IMAGE: Ori Systems

For more on this story and video go to: https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/07/mit-robotic-ori-systems-furniture-pre-order/