Waymo starts selling its LiDAR sensors to power robots, security systems, and more
The small mound on the back of Waymo's self-driving cars is for sale.
The Alphabet-owned autonomous car company is making its "homemade" LiDAR sensor, the Laser Bear Honeycomb, available to other companies.
In a blog post Wednesday, the company said it's offering the light-measuring device to car companies, as well as firms in other industries such as robotics, manufacturing, agriculture, security, entertainment, and gaming. Imagine a security robot guarding a building or a camera rig scanning a movie set.
Right now, the device sits on the self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans Waymo has been using in Arizona and the Bay Area.
The move is another way for Waymo to bring in revenue, since the self-driving unit is only operating an autonomous car service in the suburbs of Phoenix, called Waymo One. It has similar pricing to Uber and Lyft, but Waymo only has about 400 vehicles on the road.
Last quarter Alphabet reported it spent $1.3 billion on "other bets," including Waymo. In Wednesday's post, the company wrote, "Offering this [LiDAR] to partners helps spur the growth of applications outside of self-driving cars and also propels our business forward."
The price of the device was not immediately available, but entire self-driving rigs are known to cost more than $100,000.
If you're interested, Waymo is taking requests for the sensor now.
Topics Self-Driving Cars
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
