Hello! We’re Ohmnilabs, founded by Thuc Vu, Jared Go and Tingxi Tan. We create affordable and capable home robots that redefine the aging-in-place experience.
Why we’re doing what we’re doing
As our parents grow older, we worry about their well-being, especially if they are living by themselves. We have found that there is a deep and vital need for a better way to help independently-living seniors live more comfortably in their own homes. Because we personally feel this need ourselves with our own families, we have turned this into our passion project. As a team, we bring experience in the tech and startup industries, a blend of disciplines, and diverse technical expertise in hardware and software to the table.
To us, being there for our families means being there not just once a year when we go home, or once a week when we can schedule a video chat, but being able to pop in for dinner on a Tuesday night and sit right at the dinner table with them. It means being able to say hello and check in on our parents in the morning to make sure they’ve taken their medicine. It means being able to be there for them consistently and spontaneously, and letting real life be part of the conversation. Ideally, it doesn’t matter if we can’t get on a plane every weekend to visit. In our dream scenario, we can say good morning and good night every day of the week if we want to.
We're building the technology so that we can support our families whenever they need us. If our parents suffer an injury or accident in the home, we’d like to be able to call for help for them. If a loved one is having a bad day, we’d love to have the ability to sit and chat over coffee with them from halfway across the world. And if there’s something to celebrate? Who wouldn’t want to step right into the action?
Why robotics are the next big thing
Robotics are the next big thing. Humans have always used tools and technology to expand our capabilities and to explore the world -- but the most important thing we use any technology for is to connect with others and share things with the people we care about. Technology has always been about the social, and now that we’re connected more than ever thanks to the Internet, we need to tackle the next big problem: presence.
Presence has always been the missing link in current communication platforms that we have today such as Skype, Google Hangouts, or even Facebook and Twitter. What could be more important for strengthening a bond with another person than being present with them, sharing an experience with them? We’re working on robotic technology that help us connect to another person’s reality. We’re trying to bridge two worlds that might be thousands of miles apart to create one beautiful shared experience.
What’s next
We are currently working with retirement communities, home care agencies and individual elder homes to refine our product to make sure we are solving the right problems with the right technology. We’ll be posting updates and more details on this blog in the upcoming months, so stay tuned!