Hirebotics Turns iPhones Into Spatial Teaching Tools for Cobot Painter

Operators move the smartphone around the actual part to be painted to capture key positions and orientations, then company's Beacon platform generates an optimized painting path

LAS VEGAS, October 21, 2026--FABTECH – Hirebotics today launched the latest version of Smart Teach for the company's Cobot Painter, enabling operators to teach cobots using the spatial-sensing capabilities of an iPhone instead of programming or physically guiding a robot arm. With Smart Teach, operators simply move an iPhone around a workpiece to show the system what to paint and how. Hirebotics' Beacon platform then uses the captured positions and orientations to generate a painting path automatically, without writing robot code or creating a CAD model.

This technology is particularly valuable for manufacturers handling large, awkward or hard-to-reach parts, where teaching paths along the back, sides or interior can be difficult when operators must physically guide a cobot arm to each position. Smart Teach dramatically speeds up this process, making Cobot Painter practical even for high-mix production environments where new parts and applications require frequent teaching.

"This is a major step for robot/human collaboration," said Matthew Bush, co-founder and CEO, 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. With our latest Smart Teach technology, operators can now show Beacon the work that needs to be done, and the system handles teaching the cobot how it needs to move to accomplish the job. We've evolved from 'Program the robot' to 'Guide the robot' to 'Show the robot.'"

The Evolution of Robot Programming: From Hand Guiding to Show
Traditionally, programming an industrial robot has required specialized expertise and often complex CAD or offline programming software. Creating, testing and refining robot paths can take days or weeks, depending on the application and availability of a programmer.

Hirebotics simplified this process by putting robot teaching in the hands of the people who know the work. In 2018, the company pioneered two-button, hand-guided teaching with Smart Puck, allowing operators to position the cobot by hand and capture each point directly at the robot, without writing robot code or building paths in CAD software.

Hirebotics' latest Smart Teach technology separates the teaching process from physical manipulation of the cobot by allowing operators to move a compact smartphone around the part instead of having to maneuver the entire cobot arm.