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Robot teardown
stripping robots for good

Why are we
doing this?

1. Fight planned obsolescence in robotics
Similar to Ford in the 1920s, several robot manufacturers apply planned obsolescence practices
today in an attempt to discourage repairs and evade competition. Through teardown, we study the
hardware architectures of robots and show indicators of obsolescence.

2. Call for a Right to Repair in robotics
We advocate against the business priorities set in industry to avoid repairs and planned obsolescence.
Instead, we advocate for a Right to Repair in robotics as a means to recycle robots and robot components
across use-cases. Repair is good for manufacturers, good for the economy, and good for the rest of us.

3. Advocate against robot e-waste
We need to make robots that last longer and whose components can be recycled. Unless we react now,
robot e-waste will be as toxic as the res of the electronics of our Digital Age.

4. Product evaluation and benchmarking
Benchmarking robots nowadays isn't an easy job. Specially when it comes to relevant aspects affecting
how we interact with these machines. We tear them down to research safety, security and
quality aspects, while benchmarking their hardware against similar products.

Read our robot teardown paper