ARC 2020.11.02.00

PayPal prepaid is not supported in Belgium it seems. But like Nomad said ordering a prepaid card from the bank is possible to use for payments.

hi amin

it seems the only solution for belgium .credit card cost 7.50 euro per month . where is donald trump when you need him.

I subscribed to the ARC platform so I could continue to use the Plugins I need but I am not sure if this will solve the revenue challenge.  I assume running Synthiam (Building lease, Utilities, Salaries, Research and Dev etc) would be in the region of 300K to 500K CAD annually so we would need to have 3000+ subscribers to make this model viable.

Obviously the win comes when Synthiam can land a commercial account. I work with a lot of Canadian startups who are all in the same position. They all have cool tech but unless they have a complete end to end solution that is robust, secure and backed by a large company then they will not get past a Proof of Concept (PoC).  I love Synthiam's vision: companies in retail, mining, agriculture etc will use Synthiam to control their robots. Unfortunately until they have a complete solution (Robot + Software + Services) like EZ-Robot had, I am not sure Synthiam will get a lot of traction.

I believe Synthiam should focus on their strengths and sell the development of PoC's for future products. All large companies have R&D/Innovation labs and their goal is to build the next XYZ to support their business.  The ideas are usually half baked and they need to build a (POC) to prove them. Example a retailers R&D lab will say we want to do shelf compliance, make sure the products are in stock and where they should be and the Electronic Shelf Labels are in front of that product and they are working.  They will look at the commercial offerings and do a PoC. If one doesn't exist that meets their needs they will need to build a prototype and do the PoC. This seems like a huge research and development project. You have to  build a robot that can run around the store, know exactly where it is, use visual recognition to identify products, check that against a 3D planogram you also have to create using SLAM,  check the shelf label is in front of the product and the correct price details are displayed.  In reality with ARC it is only a 2 to 3 week project.

Developing robotics PoC for industry is where I believe Synthiam will add the greatest value. In a few weeks you can get a prototype running with ARC to control and do just about anything. This is what ARC was designed for.  Synthiam may only receive 30K to 50K per PoC but this should be enough to keep the lights on and there is additional opportunity if the PoC is successful to work in partnership with another Robotics Hardware or IT company to build out a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and then licence ARC as part of the final solution.

You guys have no idea how happy it makes me to see more and more pro member badges popping up in the community! Pumped!

That is great news DJ, I didn't realize you have so many users who have subscribed. If you can get to a sustainable business model through subscription ignore my post.

In regards to PoC I didn't mean PoC hardware, I mean solve real world customer problems that will require a combination of hardware, software and services. Think Synthiam Labs that uses Synthiam software (ARC, Exoshpere), Synthiam Services (You, Jeremie, Amin, Valentin and community members as required) and select the hardware required that meets the current use case. This maybe 3rd party robotics, off the shelf components or custom solution.

I would probably start by putting together a service offering (describe in a 1 page brief with a link to a video showcasing your work). I would then reach out to the innovation lead at large enterprises (Type Innovation as search in Linkedin). Offer free Synthiam Lab workshops to brain storm ideas for Robotics. You could either do in person (Covid willing) since you have the space or you can do virtual, especially with Exosphere. Automating physical tasks through robotics is becoming a hot topic. Everyone was caught off guard when Covid hit as people were not able to come to work. I would take an industry approach and focus on an industry that you are most familiar with or where robots would have the greatest impact and then add additional industries over time.

Well interesting, I have been gone from the robot world for a few months so all this info about subscription hitting me all at once. I came back here to check on modifying the Roomba robots as, I bought 1 broken last winter and just purchased the new  Irobot Create 2 which is a cheaper version of the roomba vacuum 600 series.Is hackable model with none of the actual brushes but instead has the mother board exposed with USB to any laptop/PC or microcomputers arduinos etc...free software to fully hack the Irobot sensors and fully custom programmed commands just like what we do with EZB controllers. Only I want to use my EZB-v4 + Latte panda mini computer all on board the roomba to add even more functions from the synthiam software. So is it really a hundred dollars to upgrade all the synthiam software and what if I just keep using my older synthiam software,will all my old Terminator command programs still work? I am willing to pay but a hundred seems too much all at once,is there any way to split up the costs?

EDIT---  OK nevermind that last question I can still easily pay for the monthly subscription, no worries.

Do you know what I get tired with,  Canadian companies ripping off Canadians,  everything mentioned here is based on U.S dollars the monthly just an example the premium support is $14.99 U.S. Dollars   for Canadians that is $19.51 Canadian Way to expensive.  I know as a Canadian trying to make ends meet during the corvid crisis.  since everything is imported into canada, an I do mean everything. I am barely hanging on.  Winter is almost here, think higher heating costs, clothing electricity, shipping.     The only fun during this dark times was Robotics, now what.   I think Synthiam has to address this.

I hear you man, Canada sux during this covid bull. Many of us lost jobs and then suddenly covid restrictions from the loving government made me lose my summer Motor home ,then my winter usual cheap motel spots all suddenly stopped charging the cheap winter rate for regular Canadians but the government took them all over to continue housing all the influx of new immigrants. S.O.L. for me, now forced to pay triple rents in the most expensive city in Ontario since that was all I could find as my brother was already there.Still will not give up my robot hobby,love the EZB and synthiam software,greatest in the world ,will support them to continue making amazing synthiam plug-ins, those guys like DJ ,Jer and the team always answer questions quickly and are like my virtual bro's of the internet! Hopefully loving government does not shut down our internets too,you never know,peace!cool