Techman still sells the cobots its own 2022 models beat on every number

Read Techman Robot's six-model TM AI Cobot line as one table and an awkward pattern appears: the two arms the Taiwanese manufacturer released in 2022 outclass the two it released in 2018 in every published parameter, and all four remain in the catalogue. The TM20 carries 20 kg over a reach of 1300 mm and weighs 32 kg. The TM12, four years older, carries 12 kg over exactly the same 1300 mm reach and weighs 33 kg. Same working envelope, eight kilograms less payload, one kilogram more mass on the mounting plate. The other pair repeats the shape: the TM16 carries 16 kg to 917 mm at 32 kg, against the TM14's 14 kg to 1100 mm at 33 kg — here the older arm at least keeps a reach advantage, which is the only column in the whole line where 2018 wins. The naming does not help a buyer see this. In the heavier models the number is the payload, so TM12 through TM20 read as a ladder. In the TM5 pair it is not: the TM5-700 carries 6 kg and the TM5-900 carries 4 kg, both under a name suggesting five, and neither reaches the millimetre figure in its own model number — the datasheets say 746 mm and 946 mm. Techman publishes no list prices, so the catalogue offers no visible reason to choose the 2018 pair over the 2022 pair. Whatever that reason is — price, installed base, spare-part continuity for existing cells — it does not appear on the product pages, and a buyer sizing a workstation from reach and payload alone would have no way to find it. The company's newest line moves in a different direction again. The S series, launched in 2023 and extended in 2025 with the TM6S and TM20S, is sealed to IP65 rather than IP54 and quotes repeatability of plus/minus 0.03 mm, which Techman describes as up to 70 percent better than the earlier arms. Sealing and precision usually trade against each other; here they improved together, one generation apart from the arms that are still on sale beside them.