The $400 number

Most home-robot coverage gives you a price you can't act on — a $250,000 demo unit, or no number at all. Figure just floated a different one: a car-style lease at $400–600 a month. That's the figure that turns "someday" into a line you could actually pencil into a budget, next to the mortgage and the car payment.

Worth keeping the excitement in check, though. The piece is built for investors, not for anyone caring for an 86-year-old. There's nothing in it about catching a fall — a human fall, not the robot's own — or handing over medication, or what happens when the thing "limps to maintenance" at 2am while your father needs the bathroom. The reliability protocols are about protecting the hardware. The lease price is real news. The eldercare use case is still a slide nobody has built.