Is Silicon Valley ready to put robots in people’s homes? Hello Robot is

Key points

• Martinez, California, is about as far as you can get from Silicon Valley and still be in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Perched on the northeast edge of the bay, the small city is home to Hello Robot, a startup that itself is about as far as one can get from the maximalist promises of its robotics rivals 45 miles south.
• Hello Robot released the fourth iteration of its home assistance robot, Stretch, last month.
• And you might stretch to call it a humanoid robot.
• While Stretch boasts a vaguely human torso and sensor-studded head, its telescoping arm has a pair of pinchers, and it rides around on a heavy, omnidirectional wheeled base.