My Robot Rejects

About

My rejects. After acquiring a robot and engaging with all of its features and behavior, I would judge my enjoyment with it against my collection criteria. Ideally, I could have assessed this before acquiring the robot from marketing material and reviews, but most of these were acquired before I finalized my criteria, so at one point, there was a great purge where I gave these to various family and friends.

JD Humanoid

My Review. C- ✧ Awkward design

• Design: ■ multi-function components ■ goofy look with too many exposed wires
• Movement: ■ pretty cool dances (more than a few) ■ awkward walking
• Interaction: ■ object tracking ■ facial detection ■ facial expression detection ■ no obstacle detection
• Personality: ■ no personality

Info. 2013 | EZ-Robot | Canada | Controlled

Jibo

My Review. D ✧ Major disappointment for what was supposed to be first commercial social robot

• Design: ■ interesting, futuristic look ■ relatively loud constant fan noise
• Movement: ■ natural, life-like
• Interaction: ■ facial and voice recognition
• Personality: ■ tries to be sociable ■ mechanical/creepy voice (supposedly child-like) ■ not really capable of conversations

Info. 2017 | Jibo | USA | Companion

Miko 2

My Review. D ✧ Terrible as a companion robot

• Design: ■ cute look ■ loud speaker
• Movement: ■ good facial animation
• Interaction: ■ poor voice recognition
• Personality: ■ no personality ■ inappropriate adult female voice ■ not really capable of conversations

Info. 2019 | India | Companion

Misty II

My Review. C ✧ Weak locomotion design and no personality

• Design: ■ arms are not automated
• Movement: ■ slow, impotent treads
• Interaction: ■ decent obstacle avoidance ■ limited to no sensor usage out of the box
• Personality: ■ no personality

Info. 2019 | Misty Robotics | USA | Controlled

Q.bo One

My Review. C ✧ No body and no personality

• Design: ■ cute (previous version with body) ■ realistic, yet creepy eyes ■ LED mouth is weak
• Movement: ■ interesting, rotating head and eyes
• Interaction: ■ usage of Google Assistant API
• Personality: ■ no unique personality, although it can be programmed with one

Info. 2018 | Thecorpora | Spain | Companion

ROBOHERO

My Review. C ✧ Decent capabilities, but defective in many ways

• Design: ■ interesting superhero-type design ■ too many exposed wires ■ servo sounds are too loud
• Movement: ■ pretty agile moves ■ awkward walking
• Interaction: ■ no real sensors
• Personality: ■ no personality

Info. 2016 | TTRobotix | Taiwan | Controlled

RoboMe

My Review. C ✧ Limited capabilities dependent on an old smart phone

• Design: ■ nice customizable faces and programmable functions ■ no automated arms/waist (just posable)
• Movement: ■ slow movement
• Interaction: ■ good obstacle avoidance ■ does not allow roaming nor obstacle avoidance when phone connected ■ weak voice recognition
• Personality: ■ repetitive phrases (not funny nor interesting)

Info. 2013 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Robopanda

My Review. D ✧ Kids-only design with limited capabilities

• Design: ■ goofy design
• Movement: ■ limited movement (mostly for kid doll-like play)
• Interaction: ■ limited interaction
• Personality: ■ no real personality

Info. 2007 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Roborover

My Review. C- ✧ Kids-only design with limited capabilities

• Design: ■ kids-only design ■ no automated arms/waist (just posable) ■ limited remote control
• Movement: ■ interesting tractor wheel movement (including on front angle)
• Interaction: ■ weak remote tracking feature ■ no voice control
• Personality: ■ corny

Info. 2009 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Robosapien Remix

My Review. C- ✧ Kids-only design with limited capabilities

• Design: ■ kids-only design ■ limited automated arms/legs
• Movement: ■ cute one-trick-pony dance move ■ awkward walking gait ■ manually triggered fist features
• Interaction: ■ basic kids-only
• Personality: ■ no real personality

Info. 2021 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Robosapien V2

My Review. D ✧ Potential to be great like RS Media eventually was, but failed due to defective wiring

• Design: ■ cool, big powerful look ■ quirky hand gauntlet sensor design ■ mostly defective internal wiring ■ problematic finger pulley system
• Movement: ■ cool dance exhibiting dexterity/balance ■ cool bowling throw ■ articulated waist for major movement ■ hand movement ties to head position ■ walks in a large circle rather than a straight line
• Interaction: ■ decent obstacle avoidance ■ articulated fingers to grab/release ■ ability to interact with other WowWee robots ■ color camera is limited (e.g., rarely recognizing ball) especially in lower light levels ■ no voice control
• Personality: ■ decent autonomy

Info. 2005 | WowWee (Mark Tilden) | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Robot Zombie

My Review. C- ✧ Kids-only design with limited capabilities

• Design: ■ cool look ■ no automated arms/waist (just posable)
• Movement: ■ lame wheel movement vs legs
• Interaction: ■ no interaction
• Personality: ■ limited/no life-likeness

Info. 2013 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Scout

My Review. C ✧ Not really autonomous, and not very capable

• Design: ■ gets dangerously hot ■ touts autonomy but just dynamically avoids obstacles after requiring mostly manual pre-planning
• Movement: ■ capable multi-directional wheels ■ slow
• Interaction: ■ obstacle avoidance ■ facial recognition
• Personality: ■ no personality ■ no display (e.g., expressions) on face screen

Info. 2021 | Moorebot | Entertainment

Tri-bot

My Review. C ✧ Kids-only design with limited capabilities

• Design: ■ kids-only design ■ no automated arms/waist (just posable) ■ limited remote control
• Movement: ■ very cool 3-wheel movement ■ lateral movement seems much weaker/slower than observed on videos and Mr. Personality (motor power?)
• Interaction: ■ weak obstacle avoidance ■ no voice control
• Personality: ■ cheery demeanor

Info. 2008 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment

Ultimate Co-Pilot Chewie

My Review. C ✧ Life-less eyes and limited capabilities

• Design: ■ semi-authentic movie look (in “miniaturized” form) ■ life-less eyes, since eyelids seem to only move to close for sleep
• Movement: ■ limited movement of mouth, arms, and eyelids
• Interaction: ■ good variety of interaction sensors: tummy (squeezing), sides (tickling), accelerometer (horizontal sleep mode, flying, movement reaction), head (petting), proximity sensor, sound sensor ■ despite 100+ sound/motion combinations, fairly unconvincing interaction (for adults) mostly due to eyes
• Personality: ■ no personality

Info. 2018 | FurReal | USA | Entertainment

Wrex the Dawg

My Review. D ✧ Had some fun features, but could not execute over time with its weak motors

• Design: ■ cool cartoonish look/voice ■ manual eyeballs seem dated ■ does not seem very compelling
• Movement: ■ cool cartoonish gestures ■ strange movement with wheels and front feet
• Interaction: ■ no computer vision
• Personality: ■ goofy autonomy

Info. 2008 | WowWee | Hong Kong | Entertainment