“Welcome to Looi, your phone’s new body! It’s time to give it a soul.” With this audacious declaration, the crowdfunding campaign for what could be one of the most inventive smartphone accessories available for purchase begins.
The eccentric little desktop robot Looi actually makes your phone come to life. It attaches itself magnetically to your smartphone, merging with the technology to sense its surroundings and uses the screen as animated eyes.
However, Looi is more than just another smart device; as seen by its demo film, ChatGPT language processing has given it a personality of its own. This endows it with an abundance of vibrant feelings and unique ideas. It could be grinning with happiness one minute and scowling the next.
Looi provides some genuine use in addition to being a pet. When you need to recharge, you can use the robot as a wireless charger. It turns into an avatar that you may use to explore the world from a distance. In addition, it may function as a clock and provide call alerts. It even allows you to play video games.
Looi can sense everything around it thanks to sensors, so it responds to touch, hand gestures, and even your departure from the room. Therefore, even though it enjoys having company, it also knows when to leave you alone.
With two weeks remaining, the Indiegogo campaign has already raised nearly $243k, much more than its modest $5k goal. As part of a special “Early Bird” promotion, you may pre-order this bot for $129 (about Rs 10,755), with delivery scheduled to begin in August of this year. This is shockingly cheap for such a sophisticated robot.
Robotics as a whole is developing quickly thanks to ChatGPT and other increasingly complex AI language models. Consider Figure 01, a general-purpose robot from startup Figure AI that can comprehend and react to natural commands. Through back-and-forth dialogues, it can perform jobs such as dishwashing.