The Story
By 2019, smart assistants had been around for some years. However, their practical functionality in the home was still limited for those without extensive smart home systems. Home robots had also become common, at least in the form of robot vacuums, but despite many attempts, people tended to avoid interactions with such devices. In creating a new business for our appliance division for CEO HS Kim, we chose to address both challenges by imagining a form factor that was friendly, capable of many small user-facing tasks, and approachable from a psychological perspective.
By combining on-device visual AI with voice functionality and mobility, we created a device you wanted to pick up and a robot that approached and interacted with you. We were invited to showcase the prototype at CES 2020, and work has continued in the background to find a product realization targeted to commercialization.
