Hirebotics Turns iPhones Into Spatial Teaching Tools for Industrial Cobots

LAS VEGAS – October 21, 2026 – The industrial manufacturing floor is getting a consumer-technology makeover. At this year’s FABTECH convention, Nashville-based automation company Hirebotics announced the launch of its updated Smart Teach system, a platform that leverages the spatial-sensing capabilities of an Apple iPhone to program its Cobot Painter.

Rather than writing complex lines of code or physically wrestling a robotic arm into position, operators can now generate automated painting paths simply by moving a smartphone around a workpiece. The system captures the device's positions and orientations in three-dimensional space, translating those movements into a precise trajectory for the collaborative robot (cobot) to follow.

The announcement highlights a rapidly accelerating trend in industrial automation: the democratization of robot programming through intuitive, no-code interfaces. By utilizing ubiquitous consumer hardware, Hirebotics aims to make high-mix robotic painting accessible to small and medium-sized fabrication shops that lack dedicated robotics engineers.

The Evolution of the Cobot Interface

Historically, programming an industrial robot has been a bottleneck for manufacturers. Traditional methods require specialized expertise, often relying on complex offline Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software or clunky teach pendants. Creating, testing, and refining a single robot path could take days or even weeks, rendering automation economically unviable for job shops that handle a high mix of low-volume parts.

The industry’s first major pivot away from code-heavy programming was "lead-through" or hand-guided teaching. In 2018, Hirebotics was among the pioneers of this approach, introducing a two-button Smart Puck that allowed operators to physically grab the cobot arm and guide it through waypoints.

However, physically manipulating a cobot arm has its own limitations, particularly when painting large, awkward, or hard-to-reach parts. Guiding an arm along the interior of a deep chassis or the back of a complex weldment can be physically taxing and ergonomically challenging for the operator.

"This is a major step for robot/human collaboration," said Matthew Bush, co-founder and CEO of Hirebotics. "We started with the idea that shops shouldn’t have to understand how to program a cobot to take advantage of automation technology. Now we’re challenging whether an operator even needs to touch the cobot to teach it. We’ve evolved from ‘Program the robot’ to ‘Guide the robot’ to ‘Show the robot.’"

The competitive landscape for simplified robot programming is fierce. Companies like Wandelbots have developed specialized smart jackets equipped with sensors that operators wear to demonstrate tasks, while software platforms like READY Robotics' ForgeOS attempt to unify and simplify interfaces across different robot brands. Hirebotics’ approach stands out by utilizing off-the-shelf consumer hardware—the iPhone—to achieve spatial path generation without requiring wearable suits or specialized industrial teaching wands.

Under the Hood: LiDAR and AR in the Job Shop

The mechanics of the Smart Teach system rely heavily on the advanced sensor arrays embedded in modern smartphones. While Hirebotics has abstracted the complexity away from the user into a simple "Point, Click, Move" workflow, the underlying technology is a sophisticated blend of hardware and software.

The system likely leans on the iPhone’s LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanner, which offers millimeter-level depth sensing, combined with Apple’s ARKit visual-inertial odometry (VIO). VIO utilizes the phone's camera data alongside its accelerometer and gyroscope to track the device's exact position and orientation in space.

As the operator waves the phone around the physical workpiece, Hirebotics’ proprietary Beacon platform ingests this spatial data, automatically generating a continuous painting path. Crucially, this is done without the need to upload a CAD model of the part. For job shops that frequently work with physical prototypes, one-off repairs, or legacy parts lacking digital blueprints, this CAD-free workflow is a massive operational advantage.

Once the spatial path is captured, operators are not locked into a rigid program. The Beacon software allows users to view the generated path on their device and manually adjust individual waypoints, tweak spray parameters, and refine the motion profile. This hybrid approach ensures that human expertise in finishing and coating is not lost to full automation, giving operators final control over the application's quality.

The Paint Booth Reality Check: Navigating Hazardous Environments

While the software and spatial mapping represent a significant leap forward, introducing consumer electronics into an industrial paint booth presents formidable physical and regulatory challenges.

Industrial finishing environments are inherently hostile. Under the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 33 standard, paint booths are typically classified as Class I, Division 1 or Division 2 hazardous locations due to the presence of highly flammable atomized paint solvents and vapors. Electrical equipment operating in these zones must meet strict safety certifications to prevent catastrophic fires or explosions.

Standard consumer iPhones are not intrinsically safe. They are not engineered to prevent the release of electrical or thermal energy, meaning a simple battery fault, a dropped device, or static discharge could serve as an ignition source in a solvent-rich atmosphere.

"You cannot simply walk into an active Class I, Division 1 paint booth with a standard smartphone," noted a senior industrial safety consultant specializing in finishing systems. "The risk of a static discharge or battery fault igniting atomized solvent is too high. Any consumer device used in that environment either needs an intrinsically safe, explosion-proof enclosure, or the programming must occur strictly outside the hazardous zone."

Beyond explosion risks, the physical environment of a paint booth threatens the functionality of spatial sensors. Paint overspray can quickly coat camera lenses and LiDAR sensors, blinding the device. Furthermore, highly reflective surfaces commonly found in fabrication—such as polished aluminum or stainless steel booth walls—can cause spurious reflections that confuse depth sensors and visual tracking algorithms.

To practically deploy Smart Teach, fabricators will likely need to adopt specific operational workflows. This may involve teaching the cobot path in a staging area before the workpiece is moved into the active, hazardous spray zone, or utilizing specialized, purged enclosures for the phone if it must be used near active fumes. Hirebotics bundles the required iPhone with the Cobot Painter system, which may eventually lead to the development of ruggedized, intrinsically safe housings designed specifically for these volatile environments.

Democratizing Automation for High-Mix Manufacturing

Despite the environmental hurdles of the paint booth, the economic promise of spatial teaching is undeniable. The manufacturing sector continues to grapple with a severe shortage of skilled labor, particularly in specialized trades like industrial painting and robotics programming.

By separating the teaching process from the physical manipulation of the heavy cobot arm, Hirebotics is drastically lowering the barrier to entry. Operators who understand the nuances of a good paint finish—the correct angle, distance, and speed—can now transfer that physical knowledge directly to a robot using a device they already use every day.

Smart Teach is currently launching exclusively for the Cobot Painter, but Hirebotics has confirmed plans to expand the spatial-sensing technology to its other product lines, including the Cobot Welder and Cobot Cutter.

As consumer augmented reality and spatial computing continue to mature, their intersection with heavy industry is becoming inevitable. If companies can successfully bridge the gap between the pristine environment of consumer tech and the messy, hazardous reality of the factory floor, the smartphone may soon become the most powerful industrial tool in a fabricator's arsenal.