In 2022, startup Shift Robotics successfully Kickstarted Moonwalkers, a sort of moving walkway that you wear on your feet.
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Over a year later, the company has designed a more robust model for the commercial sector. Aimed at warehouse workers, Moonwalkers X ‘increase warehouse productivity by 2X immediately,’ the company claims, ‘and they pay for themselves in under a month.’
The upgraded model, designed specifically for indoor use on smooth floors, features ten wheels rather than the original model’s six. The motive software has also been tweaked, based on user feedback (apparently abrupt stops were a problem). The company conducted a six-week trial with PCLiquidations, a company with a 55,000-square-foot warehouse in Florida, and the attendant case study reports the following:
“Moonwalkers are robotic shoes that use AI to measure a user’s stride 100-times-per-second, thus enabling the software embedded in each shoe to adjust to the Gait Cycle of each wearer, thereby maximizing safety, performance, and enjoyment while walking. Users simply strap Moonwalkers onto their closed-toe shoes and then ‘shift’ the Moonwalkers into WALK Mode with a simple twist of the right foot to start walking faster than they ever have before. Users can also ‘shift’ Moonwalkers into LOCK Mode so its wheels are locked into place and will not roll. This makes it possible for users to climb stairs, use escalators, step off of or onto a curb, and more.
“When the review period was over, employees wearing Moonwalkers
“- More than doubled the number of refurbed products they could pull from shelves for customer shipments, and
“- Doubled the amount of newly received products they could put onto shelves.
“Moonwalkers saved the company 41 hours of employee time each week, producing a Payback Period for the company of under 1 month per pair of Moonwalkers.”
The Moonwalkers X are nearly a pound lighter per shoe than the consumer-oriented originals; the former uses a magnesium frame, the latter, an aluminum one. The upgrade increases manufacturing costs. While prices have not been announced, the company says that “Moonwalkers X are more expensive to build than our original Moonwalkers,” which retail for $1,400.
Moonwalkers X will reportedly start shipping this July.
Source: core77