Double: the two-wheeled telepresence robot that used an iPad as its face

A $2,499 iPad stand on wheels

Double opened pre-orders in August 2012. Double Robotics was founded by designer David Cann and engineer Marc DeVidts. According to the ASME article, the two had been making a phone-controlled toy when they saw a $15,000 Anybots robot and balked at the price. A Segway-style base balances on two wheels, a column adjusts the height, and an iPad sits on top. When it stops, kickstands drop down on their own to save power. The list price was $2,499, with $500 off for pre-orders. IEEE Spectrum called handing the costly hardware to Apple a good idea but a risky one, because Apple optimizes for its own customers.

After 5,000 sold, Double 3 dropped the iPad

Production units began shipping in May 2013. The first 100 had gone out, another 1,000 were planned by September, and pre-order sales stood at $1.2 million. In January 2016 Double 2 raised top speed from 0.9 to 1.6 miles per hour. TechCrunch said more than 5,000 had sold worldwide since spring 2013, and a 2019 ASME article said about 10,000 were in use in factories and offices. In August 2019 Double 3 replaced the iPad with a 9.7-inch built-in screen and an NVIDIA Jetson TX2, and added depth sensors. The driver clicks a spot on the floor in the view and the robot steers around obstacles itself. It cost about $4,000, and Double 2 owners could swap in the new head for about $2,000. A 2020 SOLIDWORKS blog post said hospitals and nursing homes used it for patient visits and that orders surged. The official site now lists only Double 3, marked sold out.

“Futuristic” and “creepy” in the same office

Macworld’s Roman Loyola said setup took under ten minutes in 2013. His verdict was: “The Double robot is so easy that anyone can use it, and it’s fun, too.” Coworkers’ reactions ranged from “futuristic” to “creepy,” and the robot locked up twice when bandwidth was low. A 2016 Spectrum review found it more capable than expected, though it has no suspension and little ground clearance, and the maker says it is for indoor use. On weak LTE the lag ran from a few tenths of a second to a full second. In 2018 a pregnant UC Irvine law student on bed rest missed no classes with it. Her professor said: “I could make eye contact with her, call on her, and have the class hear her responses.” A study of a doctoral course, by contrast, named the learner’s isolation and the quality of the technology as problems. In a 2022 pilot with Double 3, most people kept 60 to 160 cm from the robot, about the distance of ordinary conversation. Only a little over half found communicating through it pleasant.

Handing the screen to someone else, then taking it back

Double cut its price by leaving the screen and computing to the iPad, then built its own head once sales had accumulated. Compared with the Beam record, which took pre-orders at $16,000 in September 2012, the price barrier was far lower. The reviews also pointed out that it needs flat indoor floors and a steady network.

What does a robot lose when its screen and brain belong to another company’s product?

What we haven’t confirmed

• Whether Double 3 can be bought now, and whether a successor is planned
• Sales figures and company status after 2019
• Design intent only as stated in 2012 coverage; we found no design awards or expert design reviews
• The pandemic order surge appears only on a partner’s blog, so we could not confirm it independently