Highly Interactive: Pepper
‘Pepper’ will dance for you, make jokes, respond to your verbal and bodily cues with emotions, and can teach or demonstrate using the tablet strapped to its chest. It’s not cheap, costing about $2,000, but companies find it to be a valuable asset in attracting and selling to customers. Pepper made its American debut as a sales assistant in a series of California malls last year.
Grillbot Pro Grill-Cleaning Robot
One big benefit of having personal bots around your home is asking them to do your dirty work for you. The Grillbot Pro automatic grill-cleaning robot’s intensity level can be set between light scrub and deep clean, and it’ll find its own way around the surface of your grill, using a replaceable cleaning cartridge to eliminate grease and grime. It’ll notify you with sound or a smartphone alert when it’s done, set off a ‘lifesaver alert’ if you place it on the grill while it’s too hot, and its brushes pop off and can be thrown in the dishwasher.
Laundry Helper: FoldiMate Folding Machine
This particular home robot looks like something that would have been cooked up by futurists back in the 1950s. The FoldiMate robotic laundry folding machine will de-wrinkle, soften, scent and neatly fold a basket of laundry. The price will be about $750 and it’s expected to hit the market later this year.
Nanny Robot: Mattel Aristotle
The Mattel Aristotle baby monitor does more than just let you peek in on your little ones when they’re in their beds. It’ll answer questions, order diapers when you run out, soothe babies back to sleep when they cry. It’s a fully functional Amazon Alexa assistant with all the same smart home capabilities as the Echo, but instead of calling Alexa, you call Aristotle when you need kid-specific assistance. It’ll even check for deals and coupons on baby supplies, play games with kids until they fall asleep, read aloud from children’s books, sing to them and help them with their homework.
