I don't want to speak for the Preceyes team, but from my conversations with them, they know what they're doing, and they've learned from Da Vinci. The use cases are very different. R2D2 isn't huuuuge and multipurpose. It's small, designed to operate only in the eye, and it's able to augment what the surgeon can do. The outcomes will come with time, but with cost, these robots might cut them. OK, it's an investment to buy/ lease the robot, and it costs to operate. But you need a sterile area to operate in. If the robot's doing the operating (on low-risk, routine procedures) and you're controlling it elsewhere, and the person's under a laminar flow hood, blowing sterile air, then you don't need an operating room (which costs lots of money to run, takes up lots of space, etc.) -- you need a laminar flow hood.

That holds the syringe in the right place with micron precision. With conventional surgery, it's not like you can let go of things like that and hand them over - even someone grabbing hold of the syringe (or whatever) can cause a tiny bit of movement - which you do not want! Ideally, the machine holds it, and positions it - like a robotic arm. Which Preceyes' robot has.

Why is this a big deal? It is the first robot to be used to perform surgery inside the human eye. The first procedure was a fairly vanilla case, yes, a vitrectomy (not with the robot) and an ILM peel (with the robot). It was a proof of concept. Robert MacLaren has the robot to do some far cooler stuff - creating a bleb under the retina, and adding in some of NightstaRx's viral vectors for gene therapy. To do that involves slowly pushing in fluids from what's basically a syringe, into a tiny hold that you've created. Your hand has to stay still with virtually no tremor to avoid causing damage. And the application takes minutes. It really is the surgeons with the steadiest hands in the world that can do this. The robot eliminates the tremor. And if you have to go back to the same hole and apply some more... hard. Beyond eliminating tremor (and extending the practical working life of some of the most experienced and talented surgeons by many years and enabling surgeons to work with really friable tissue), it can work in concert with advanced imaging technology, automate the drudgery of things like vitrectomy, and frankly, speed surgery while making it safer. This is huge - as there's a tsunami of baby boomers with age-related eye disease who need treating - and robotic assistants like R2D2 will be essential to deal with these people needing surgery. I covered it here: https://theophthalmologist.com... and the Preceyes Robot here: https://theophthalmologist.com... Check out Marc de Smet - he's the surgeon's that led the development of the robot.