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¿Robot o humano?

Security patrol

Security guard on patrol vs Autonomous patrol robot (MaaS)

Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos. Metodología · Historial de aciertos

Humano · Al año228.704 US$Guard on site
Robot · Al año151.754 US$Patrol robot as a service
Plazo de recuperación0 meses
Año de cruceyaBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Estados Unidos · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Carga de trabajo
Supuesto

Patrol hours needed per day (24 = round the clock).

Supuesto

Operating hours per day.

Supuesto

Days per month (every day).

Supuesto

Active months per year.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 33-9032.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Supuesto

One guard-hour covers one patrol-hour.

Robot
Supuesto

One robot-hour covers one patrol-hour of a defined route (outdoor lots, perimeters).

Knightscope

Midpoint of Knightscope's marketed $6-$12 per robot-hour on an annual 24/7 contract.

Supuesto

Site survey, connectivity and alarm-centre integration.

Supuesto

Contract length in years.

Supuesto

Share of hours the robot patrols (charging is scheduled).

Supuesto

Hours lost to faults, covered by a guard.

Supuesto

Share of guard hours spent on things a patrol robot cannot do: responding, access control, talking to people. A person stays on call for these.

Supuesto

Remote-monitoring minutes per robot-hour (watching alerts, often shared across sites).

Supuesto

Included in the contract.

Supuesto

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finanzas
Supuesto

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Supuesto

Years in the NPV comparison.

Supuesto

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Supuesto

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Supuesto

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Resultados

OpciónAl mesAl añoPer unit (patrol hour)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Guard on site Referencia 19.059 US$228.704 US$26,12 US$— — — —
Robot Patrol robot as a service 12.646 US$151.754 US$17,33 US$3000 US$ 0.5 meses 1 %
Utilisation 72 %
 362.527 US$

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Patrol robot as a service5-year NPV vs baseline: Patrol robot as a serviceWork that stays humanlow value: 0.15 → 474.997 US$high value: 0.6 → 221.940 US$Workloadlow value: 8 → 118.842 US$high value: 24 → 362.527 US$Hourly wagelow value: 14.624000000000002 → 247.322 US$high value: 21.936 → 477.732 US$Supervisionlow value: 2 → 406.667 US$high value: 20 → 208.037 US$Subscription per robot-hourlow value: 6 → 432.694 US$high value: 12 → 292.361 US$Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 302.063 US$high value: 1.579 → 422.992 US$Work lost to failureslow value: 0 → 382.390 US$high value: 0.1 → 316.180 US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 391.318 US$high value: 0.12 → 328.427 US$Wage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 341.663 US$high value: 0.0636 → 384.192 US$362.527 US$low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/security-patrol/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos.

ChartCosto humano por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance rápido), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance lento). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/security-patrol/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$10,00 US$20,00 US$30,00 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / patrol hourscenario rangeCosto humano por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/security-patrol/). Modelled estimate,…

Año de cruce: ya

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
A robot cannot intervene, give first aid or de-escalate. It detects and reports; someone still responds.
Calidad
Robots never skip a round and record everything; guards notice context.
Flexibilidad
Guards do access control, deliveries, lost children. Robots patrol.
Edge cases
Stairs, rain, crowds and vandalism are known problems. One famously drove into a fountain.
Customer experience
Visible deterrence cuts both ways: some visitors like it, some find it creepy.
Jobs and redeployment
In practice robots replace overnight rounds on big lots; people move to response and monitoring.
Regulación
Licensing applies to guards, not robots; recording and privacy law applies to robot cameras (GDPR in the EU/UK).

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

Las notas y las fuentes están en inglés; la versión en inglés es la de referencia.

  1. Knightscope robots: effective $6-$12 per hour on an annual 24/7 Machine-as-a-Service contract Knightscope, 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  3. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  4. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  5. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  6. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  7. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  8. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  9. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  10. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  11. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  12. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013