-Opened unmanned cafe 'Lounge X24 Seongsu branch' early this year… Increased customer base by capturing both taste and user experience
-Development of a robot building solution that enhances user experience by allowing robots and space to interact together
-“We plan to start with retail and then expand to offices and homes.”
“Robot technology is widely used in factories, but it is not yet widely applied in everyday life. That’s why we started with retail.”
These are the words of Hwang Sung-jae, CEO of XYZ, whom we met at 'Lounge X 24-hour Seongsu branch.' 'Lounge X' is a subsidiary of XYZ, a robotics company. The robots developed by XYZ include Barisbrew (high-end cafe robot), BarisbrewX (basic cafe robot), Barisdrip (drip coffee), Aris (ice cream), and Storage (autonomous driving delivery).
There is a reason why XYG focused on daily life, especially the F&B sector, among the various robot applications. CEO Hwang said, “Robot technology has advanced a lot, but it is mostly focused on factory automation. There are not many robots in daily life yet. From the beginning, we have put forward the slogan, ‘We Invent Intelligent Robots for Daily Life.’ We wanted to create robots that accompany people in their daily lives.”
Then why did they focus on F&B, especially cafes, first? CEO Hwang cited economic feasibility, ease of data collection, and the possibility of gradual technological development. It is difficult for individuals to use expensive robots at home. On the other hand, in commercial spaces, the profitability of robots can be calculated. Cafes have high labor costs and many repetitive tasks, so automation is a great place to work. Factories cannot obtain user data, but in retail environments such as cafes, data on interactions with various customers can be collected. The data collected in this way is essential for robot intelligence. XYG’s strategy is to prove robot technology in retail and expand it to offices and homes through the data and experiments accumulated here.
■ Lounge X, a combination of cafe and robot
1) Providing taste and user experience
The most important thing in a cafe is taste. XYZ acquired a coffee company, operated its own roastery, and developed the best recipes by collaborating with champion baristas. CEO Hwang explained, “Customers who visit the store often come back saying, ‘The coffee is delicious.’ Rather than focusing on the fact that the coffee is made by a robot, they are paying attention to the taste first.”
“I think the advantage of robotics technology is not simply replacing people, but creating new experiences.”
The second is the user experience. Unlike other unmanned cafes that mostly have closed structures in the form of vending machines, Lounge X operates with an open store structure, providing an experience similar to a manned store. Customers can directly see the process of Barisbrew robots making coffee, so they can also enjoy the visual pleasure.
The smart pick-up zone is a patented technology developed by XYG that can manage 24 types of drinks by classifying them by customer. Customer information and product information are displayed on the display, and drinks that are not picked up for a long time are automatically processed by a robot. There is also an intelligent function that detects and avoids the wrong items placed in the pick-up zone.
When customers enter the store, the robot greets them, makes eye contact, and mimics their gestures, providing enjoyment to the users. “Unmanned stores can feel cold, like a vending machine experience, but we added emotional elements, such as the robot greeting them, making gestures, and sometimes dancing to music,” explained CEO Hwang.
Another advantage is that it has an app ordering system, so you can conveniently order. It is noteworthy that about 40% of sales occur during the time when other cafes are closed (after 6 p.m.). This is where the strength of an unmanned store that operates 24 hours stands out.
2) Application of core robotics technology
The robotics technologies applied to Lounge X are as follows:
First, the robot has applied intelligent technology that allows it to make its own judgments. It finds alternative solutions when the cup lid does not close properly, or recognizes the user's actions. It can hold cups and tumblers of various shapes thanks to the atypical object grip technology. In particular, since tumblers come in different shapes, it is important to have technology to recognize them and handle them appropriately.
Second, we have built an infrastructure that can operate multiple robots in an integrated manner on a cloud platform. By utilizing a cloud-based robot control framework and digital twin technology, robots can be effectively managed and controlled remotely.
Third, human-robot interaction technology (HCI) provides a friendly experience to users by implementing interactive gestures such as greeting, eye contact, and following user actions. CEO Hwang said, “It is important for users to feel human warmth toward robots. These days, the frequency of people in the service industry speaking warmly is decreasing, but it seems that there are many cases where people feel warmth from artificial intelligence.”
3) Opening 10 unmanned stores and supplying to in-house cafes by this year
Lounge X opened its first unmanned store, 'Lounge X 24 Hours Seongsu Store', early this year, and currently has three more stores under construction. It plans to expand to 10 stores by the end of this year. There are also five unmanned and manned collaborative stores operating nationwide. XYG's Baris Brew is also popular in corporate cafes. It has currently been supplied to 14 large corporations, and sales are increasing by 3-4 units per month.
Barisbrew can make 100 cups of coffee per hour. This is equivalent to a cafe with 3.5 baristas. CEO Hwang emphasized the profits of Lounge X unmanned stores, saying, “It turned out to be more profitable than manned stores. The average monthly profit rate of coffee franchises in Korea is only 22.5%. If you exclude management fees and store owner labor costs, it is around 10%. Lounge X unmanned stores have a profit rate of around 40-48%, so sales are lower than franchises, but net profit is higher.”
■ Customer contact points are competitive
What is XYG’s biggest differentiator in the robot market? CEO Hwang emphasized that they have challenged the customer contact area.
“There are many places that are trying to automate with robots. But XYG is the only one that is challenging the customer contact area. It is that difficult.”
XWYZ is continuously collecting data on customer interactions and developing models based on this. At the end of last year, it formed a new intelligence team to focus more on this area. It currently holds six U.S. registered patents and 23 domestic patents, and is protecting core technologies related to robot movement, safety, and user interaction.
■ A space that improves user experience by interacting with robots… Development of Robot Building Solution (RBS)
XYG is expanding its business beyond simple cafe robots with the concept of 'Robot Building Solution (RBS)'. This is to create a space where users and robots coexist organically by connecting space-robot-people. XYG is currently carrying out a project to apply the Robot Building Solution to 'Seongsu CF Tower'. Domestic robot building cases include 'Naver 1784', 'Factory Seongsu', and 'Seongsu CF Tower', and among them, XYG is participating in 'Factory Seongsu' and 'Seongsu CF Tower'.
In the building where the robot building solution will be applied, a total of 10 robots for food and beverage manufacturing, delivery, cleaning, guidance, and control are scheduled to be introduced by the middle of next year, and each robot is integrated and connected into a single system. In addition, the building itself can respond to situations with situational awareness. For example, if coffee is spilled and contaminated, a cleaning robot will automatically move to the location and clean it, providing linked services. A guidance robot for the visually impaired is also under development, and this will improve accessibility for the disabled. The robot building solution does not simply deploy robots, but aims to make the entire building intelligent so that the robots and space interact together to improve the user experience.
■ From retail to office and home
XWYZ has a long-term vision of introducing robots into everyday environments. It is currently starting in the retail market and plans to expand to office environments from 2025 to 2029. In this phase, it plans to increase the efficiency of office environments through Storagy (warehousing and delivery), Miro (cleaning robot), and Lumi (guide robot).
Starting in 2027, we plan to enter the home robot market and introduce care robots, cooking robots, and housekeeping robots. CEO Hwang stated his vision of “developing home robots with price competitiveness based on proven technology in retail and offices, as it is difficult to purchase expensive robots at home.” Through this, XYZ aims to introduce robot technology to all areas of daily life and contribute to improving the convenience of life.
With the advancement of robot technology, XWYZ is bringing innovation to everyday spaces and is striving to realize “Robot as a Service.” We look forward to seeing how their innovation, which started in a cafe, will change our daily lives.
CEO Hwang Seong-jae received his Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from KAIST. He is the co-founder of FUTUREPLAY and served as CPO of FLUENTY Inc., an AI chatbot startup acquired by Samsung Electronics in 2017.
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