The ReBeLMove Pro acts as a versatile base for multiple add-ons, including order-picking systems, smart shelving units, and collaborative robots equipped with conveyor belts. | Source: igus

While the big names in automation race to build robots that claim to hold “level-fifty artificial intelligence” and to design for outer space, the German firm igus - best known for polymer bearings - took another path. It launched the ReBeLMove Pro, a mobile robot stripped of every trace of glamour, but equipped with one decisive advantage that no small or mid sized owner can ignore - the price is only €38 900. A quick comparison shows that the usual market offerings start at €50 000. For this sum you do not receive a companion able to hold philosophical talks - you receive a plain, reliable and highly efficient worker that will shoulder the jobs people no longer want.

igus already deploys the ReBeLMove Pro as a shuttle that carries parts away from injection moulding machines. The work is monotonous and repetitive and companies struggle to recruit anyone willing to do it. Put more bluntly people consider themselves too good for such dull labour - they are correct. Why tie human talent to box carrying when a black-and-orange wheeled rectangle will do the job for you?
 

Numbers, not pathos

ReBeLMove Pro is not about the future. It's about today's efficiency. Here are his modest but devastatingly accurate characteristics:

• Dimensions and weight: Length 795 mm, width 560 mm, height 195 mm. It weighs 60 kg. Compact, like a good desk.
• Strength: Can carry 250 kg or pull a cart weighing up to 900 kg. It's about like five full beer kegs or one small "coffee pot" car.
• Endurance: One battery charge is enough for a full 8-hour shift. No smoke breaks or sick days.
• Speed: Moves at speeds up to 2 m/s (7.2 km/h). Faster than a man walking with a cart.
• Brains: Creates a digital map of an area of 200 m2 in less than 3 minutes using lidar and 3D cameras. You can set up his route in 15 minutes without programming skills.
  Secret weapon: the E1 energy chain and the philosophy of "cheap but not angry"

While ReBeLMove transports cargo, another igus innovation ensures that robots and machines don't get tangled in their own wires. The company has launched the E1 energy chain**, cast entirely from high-strength plastic. The problem it solves is painfully familiar to all engineers: in cramped spaces (vending machines, laboratory equipment), cable wiring is often simply neglected. And then they wonder why the wires are fraying and breaking.

"We have received positive feedback from designers around the world who have unsuccessfully searched for a cost—effective solution for laying cables in compact installation spaces," says Kira Weller, Product Manager for Power Circuits. The novelty is cheaper than traditional chains assembled from links, and its "easy-chain" design allows you to pull individual cables through flexible teeth without tools. This is a typical igus approach: find a boring, unresolved problem and fix it in the most practical and inexpensive way.

Who needs all this? Or why the future belongs to "robot day laborers"

The launch of ReBeLMove Pro is not just a new product announcement. This is a signal to the entire industry. Automation is no longer the preserve of a select few — large auto giants and pharmaceutical companies. Now a small factory, logistics warehouse, or even a large laboratory can look at it.

The average payback period (ROI) for ReBeLMove Pro is 12 months. Simply put, you pay a "salary" to this robot for a year, and then it works virtually for free, without requiring a raise or going on maternity leave. In a world where finding and retaining staff for routine operations is becoming a heroic task, such an economy looks not just attractive, but irresistible.

And here an interesting thought arises. This democratization of robotics naturally creates demand for new services. When a robot becomes an affordable asset rather than an exotic curiosity, there is a need not just to buy it, but to use it effectively. For example, you can rent for a seasonal project or find a ready—made solution for a specific task - for example, for inventory of a warehouse or unloading a machine with raw materials. This opens up a field for platforms that act as intermediaries between the owners of such universal robot platforms and those who need their "work" here and now. In fact, this is a logical evolution of the market: from selling hardware to providing robotic labor as a service.

Ultimately, the success of ReBeLMove Pro proves a simple truth: the future of automation belongs not to the smartest or fastest robots, but to the most pragmatic and accessible. Igus seems to have finally created the "robot for everyone" - a boring, nondescript, but much—needed hard worker. And, perhaps, it is precisely such robots that will change the world much more than all walking and talking androids combined. They're already changing it, just quietly and efficiently rolling boxes from point A to point B while humanity ponders the singularity.