ABB Lite+, PoWa and the Falling Price of Robots

In 1954, shoppers at this General Electric appliance store in Allentown, Pennsylvania, walked past rows of refrigerators and ranges. Machines like these started out as big purchases. They became normal in most homes once prices fell and they proved they could do one job reliably.

Refrigerators and ranges at a General Electric appliance store in Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1954. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Home robots have followed a similar path. The first Roomba went on sale in 2002 for about $200. It only vacuumed and it bumped into furniture, but it was cheap enough to try, and iRobot went on to sell millions.

An original-model iRobot Roomba. Photo: Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

On September 20, Qiyuan Robot launched two personal robots in Shanghai, with the basic versions at 19,999 yuan each, about the price of a high-end foldable phone. The 88 cm, 15 kg Q1 is built for companionship and play, while the T1 switches between a wheeled humanoid form indoors and four legs outdoors.

Unitree humanoid robots and a robot dog on display at the Japan Mobility Show 2025. Photo: RuinDig/Yuki Uchida / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Factory robots have been going through the same shift. In July 2025 ABB launched three robot families in China, all built at its Shanghai factory and run by the OmniCore controller. One of them, Lite+, is a compact arm for material handling and pick-and-place that ABB says lowers the barriers to automation for smaller operators.

ABB robots from the three families launched in China in July 2025. Photo: ABB

The purchase price is only part of the cost, since setup and programming cost money too. ABB says its PoWa cobot can be working within 60 minutes of unboxing with no-code programming, and at the launch it showed a "see, speak, do" tool that teaches a robot through spoken instructions. ABB's Wizard software lowers the same barrier with drag-and-drop blocks.

An engineer hand-guiding an ABB PoWa cobot. Photo: ABB

I expect home robots to take the Roomba route again, with cheap robots doing narrow jobs first and picking up skills as prices drop. I'll buy one when it can unload the dishwasher every day and costs less than the dishwasher did.

ABB's Wizard easy programming on a FlexPendant next to a single-arm YuMi. Photo: ABB

Innovation

AI solutions for effortless ABB robot control.

Automation

Robotics

ceojohntran@chatwithrobot.net

+84905311611

© 2025. All rights reserved.

qtran1215@gmail.com