Formant launches new freemium level for solution

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Formant now offers a freemium version of its flagship cloud robotics solution. | Credit: Formant

Formant announced a new freemium offering that gives roboticists an easy way to monitor, teleoperate, and access, via ssh, all their devices.

Founded in 2017, Formant has gained traction recently as a data platform for robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) companies, with fast-growing companies like Canvas, Blue River Technologies, and Burro all leveraging Formant’s platform to manage field-deployed robots. Rather than investing resources into the development of their web-tier applications, these companies leverage Formant for these basic capabilities.

Formant’s new free tier, Formant Studio, is built for a slightly different user: the individual roboticist or early-stage founder. This slimmed-down version of Formant’s enterprise-grade offering enables individual users to upload live robot data to the cloud and control their robot in real-time.

Built for ROS

Initially released for ROS systems, Formant Studio will let engineers easily monitor ROS topics and key metrics from their devices out of the box. Users can also send commands to the robot, or even enter into full teleoperation mode to remotely control their robot, all with minimal setup time.

The decision to release a freemium product was based on Formant’s experience working with robotics startups over the last five years, during which CEO Jeff Linnell saw a number of patterns. “Successful robotics companies rarely build everything themselves,” says Linnell, instead emphasizing the importance of leveraging off-the-shelf solutions. “We hope that companies using Formant Studio can spend more time-solving robotics and customer problems, instead of trying to build non-differentiating tools in-house.”

“Formant Studio provides any roboticist with a fast and reliable cloud-based data infrastructure and teleoperation feature for their ROS-powered robots. We’re excited to offer the power of Formant’s platform to teams or individuals of any size, stage, or budget.”

Starting today, roboticists can sign up, copy one line of code, and immediately view real-time data or drive their robot – from anywhere in the world. Formant Studio is limited to a single user but has no restrictions on the number of robots or data bandwidth. If users do not have a robot available, they can try operating a simulated robot right from the web app.