Remote control: Man in Philippines uses robot to buy bubble tea in Singapore

Someone is taking online shopping to a whole new level.

A man in the Philippines recently ordered himself some bubble tea. But guess what? He was using a robot to do just that in Singapore, which is thousands of kilometres away.

On Friday (March 3), TikTok user FrodoBots posted a minute-long clip, showing how he remotely controlled a device on wheels to order a drink from a HeyTea outlet in The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands (MBS).

The robot could be seen driving up to the mall's automatic doors, where it encountered its first challenge — the doors did not open because it could not detect its presence.

Luckily, the robot shadowed a fellow mall-goer and successfully slipped into MBS.

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@frodobots/video/7206198223017364738?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168358854533973506[/embed]

It made its way to the bubble tea counter and soon ran into another problem.

The man controlling the robot tried to get the staff's attention by saying "Hello" through the speakers, but they did not notice the device. 

It eventually managed to catch their attention, but as the man placed his order, the staff struggled to hear it clearly.

A kind stranger came to the rescue.

"What are you saying?" a fellow customer asked the robot and later helped relay the roasted brown bobo order to the staff.

Despite the tech involved in making the robot, the cashless payment option appeared to be missing — the other customer had to help pass a wallet containing cash from the robot to the staff.

While staff got to preparing the drink, the man controlling the robot asked "I wanna know if the order for the roasted brown bobo is ready".

As he walked out of the store with his own drink, the helpful customer took a moment to tell the robot that its queue number was 266.

Staff finally placed the roasted brown bobo in the robot's basket. Mission complete.

The TikTok video has since garnered more than 140,000 views and 9,400 likes at the time of writing.

It appears to be one of several videos used to demonstrate what the robots at FrodoBot can do. A few days ago, it was seen buying a chocolate bar from a local store.

Though the device appears to be still under development, netizens have responded well to what they're seeing.

Even HeyTea commented on the video, calling the robot "very very cool".

In its FAQ section, FrodoBots acknowledged that its current version of robots "can't do much" as they can only go from point A to point B and "can't climb stairs, mount curbs or press a lift button to go up a building".

This is not the first time a robot has been used to run errands in Singapore.

Last year, a 35-year-old man bought dinner at a zi char stall using a remotely controlled toy car, also encountering similar challenges as FrodoBot.

He shared with AsiaOne that it took a couple of months to create a working prototype, and explained that he decided to use the remote-controlled car to run his errands due to the a surge of Covid-19 cases at the time. 

"I am mitigating my plans of traveling out, especially to public places where the crowds are," he said. 

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aishahm@asiaone.com