Merely a Conventional ‘Diffusion’ Problem? On the Adoption Process of Anki Vector

Empirical evidence suggests that the first wave of commercially available social robots for private homes was doomed to fail. Robot start-ups shut down and participants in long-term field trials refused to use these robots after only weeks. We conducted a household study over the course of seven months, during which the commercially available Anki Vector robot was introduced to eight demographically diverse private homes for participants’ free use. The study aimed to understand which factors of owning Vector were relevant in the long-term, even if the participants did not sustainably integrate the robot into their daily lives. We used Domestic Robot Ecology (developed through studies on vacuum cleaning robots) to qualitatively analyse data collected through six household visits and compare the results with previous research on vacuum cleaning robots. Our results show the significance of subjective perceptions and expectations for what social companion robots are, how they work, and what they are or are not capable of doing. Due to a lack of perceived practical benefits and the decline of hedonic and social gain, the participating households did not sustainably integrate Vector into their daily lives. Based on our findings, we conclude that the adoption process of personal companion robots slightly differs from that of functional vacuum cleaning robots but may not differ substantially from technology adoption processes in general.