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Categorizing Consumer Robots

robot evolution

Evolution of consumer robots. Consumer robots have gone through distinct eras, each defined by new technologies, iconic designs, and shifting expectations. My collection captures this progression - from the earliest companion pets to today’s AI-powered companions - showing how each generation brought us closer to lifelike interaction!

Early Companion Pets

Aibo ERS-1000

Not just dogs. While the goal of these early companion pets was to primarily replicate real pet behavior (specifically of a puppy dog), they also came with some beyond-pet-like tricks. And PLEO (a stylized dinosaur) allowed you to raise it like a baby animal.

WowWee Analog

Robosapien X

The dawn of robotic wonders. Based on analog designs, Mark Tilden and the WowWee company created awesome humanoid, animal-like, and alien-like designs with many cool features.

NAO Humanoid

NAO Power

Early educational humanoids. Aldebaran not only created a series of fully-featured mid-sized humanoid robots, but with them, a development platform that universities used for teaching robotics and experiments.

Zoomer Wheeled

Zoomer

So simple, yet such fun!. These robots quickly ranked as Toy of the Year, because of their dynamic movement, and pure fun behavior/tricks!

WowWee Self-balancing/Wheeled

MiP

Make way, Segway - us little robots can also do that trick!. Also quickly ranking as Toy of the Year, their mesmerizing self-balancing was enhanced with their quirky personalities!

Sphero Branded Characters

R2-D2

Movie characters come to life!. Starting with BB-8 to leverage their moving ball technology (including in The Force Awakens film itself!), Sphero expanded their Star Wars drone line-up to include more iconic movie characters with accurate sound and movement. And they even ventured beyond to bring an iconic Cars animated character to life!

Cube Characters

Cozmo

Simple cubes come to life!. Starting with Cozmo from Anki, it was clear that animating eyes and limbs like Pixar characters can bring exciting life to simple cube designs!

Robosen Transforming

Optimus Prime

Transformers come to life!. After proving that they had the genius engineering to make a small humanoid robot (T9) transform, Robosen got Hasbro's attention and collaborated to bring every kid's fantasy to life - the Transformers in real life form, transforming right before our very eyes!

AI Companions

Loona

Artificial friends!. With the arrival of ChatGPT-powered voice AI, companion robots finally gained smooth, natural conversation - turning them into true artificial friends.