Maybe you should ask those surgeons. Chances are their assessment will not have changed. They don't think it's a POS. Just people out here who haven't seen it, haven't used it, know very little about it... they only know that they should have had a significant return on their investment by now and it hasn't happened, so they conjecture that it must be a POS robot. Maybe a good experiment would be for people here to try to write to some of those surgeons and ask what they currently think of it. Depending on what sort of NDA they signed, maybe they can't say much, or maybe they can. The important feedback they gave back then might seem simple enough but requires some major engineering to integrate the solutions seamlessly into the design.
The tweak after tweak is certainly frustrating for us but may be necessary for regulatory clearance. A system like this likely requires internal/invisible features such as triplicate data processing with discrepancy vote-out in the software for failsafe operation. Snake arms require a boatload of actuators, maybe each is cable-driven/motorized, or maybe using nitinol wire actuation which could require special thermal dissipation considerations and intelligent motion compensation in the event of a single actuator breakage. Folks, this is a very complex product to begin with, and clearing regulatory hurdles isn't easy. Being better than the competition isn't easy either, but that is what they are aiming for.
The DISCONNECT you speak of starts with rave reviews of prototype hardware, validating the concept only. What they have now is WAY better than those early functional prototypes because they are close to being approvable and marketable. THEY have plenty to show for it but for whatever reason (maintaining competitive hardware advantages, fear of being viewed as Marketing before approval...) they aren't sharing any details with us.
It's not a POS. The disconnect is the time gap during which we expected our investments to bring us much close to retirement potential, and the lack of public info. I also see other folks like Medtronic showing off some behemoth-sized system which isn't ready yet, and I wonder why Titan won't do the same thing. Despite my faith in the value of the design and the patent portfolio, my biggest frustrations are the misinformation being tossed around by folks who don't know, and the lack of actual info from the company. If they were a bit more forthcoming with details, the misinformation just might be overridden by facts, and big $$ investors might be more inclined to jump in. All IMO, of course...
Honeycomb777 Friday, 01/31/20 11:07:03 AM
Re: DRG1025 post# 103011 0
Post #103013 of 103013
What I will never understand is the DISCONNECT, though ? How can you have surgeons from around the world use the device, give important feedback, and complete 45 successful procedures and this be known as a complete POS months later?
It just doesn't compute for me - were they all lying about SPORT ? Did they make "tweaks" after tweaks that completely F'd things up ? What was it that threw this thing off of the cliff ?
When a device is refined - it means that it is BETTER. How can you throw $200M at a project and have NOTHING to show for it ? Help me to understand this DISCONNECT
