From Roomba vacuums to robot companions

Colin Angle was the head of iRobot for 30 years and oversaw the creation of some of the first robot vacuums. Now he’s promoting his new company, Familiar Machines & Magic. They are making a robotic companion pet. Robot companions are not a new concept, but they are gaining momentum. SwitchBot and ECOVACS both announced plans to make their own in recent months. As robots get smarter and can process more with AI, robot pets can interact with people in more ways and feel more personable than a Furby.

“The Familiar”, as the pet is called, looks remarkably lifelike compared to other ones I’ve seen. The physical eyes and blinking are particularly impressive, but it crosses a line of trying to hide the fact that it’s a robot that also seems creepy to me. The article does a great job blending written storytelling about the company with short video clips to understand the robot.

Since WSJ is behind a paywall, here’s a link for Apple News+ subscribers.

Nanoleaf is shifting

Speaking of another company interested in “AI and robotics” and more, it’s Nanoleaf! CEO Gimmy Chu gave an interview to Jennifer Pattison Tuohy at The Verge, saying, “The smart home is getting kind of boring.” This was after Nanoleaf announced on their website that they are shifting their focus.

Initially, I thought Nanoleaf was leaving the smart home altogether, but it sounds more like they view it as a solved problem in their lighting corner of the tech space. It isn’t generating the kind of profits to warrant more research and development. Instead, they’re going to focus R&D on health products like their hit light-therapy masks and potentially on AI robotics. The addition of robotics to potential new areas is surprising to me, but it’s an area changing a lot with the improvements AI brings to visual processing. Nanoleaf is a team of bright, creative people. I’m excited to see what they come up with next.

Apple’s MacBook Neo problem

This post by Tim Culpan was reblogged around the Apple space last week. The MacBook Neo was originally designed to use extra chips from iPhone 16 Pro production. The problem is that the laptop is popular enough that Apple is having to ask TSMC to make more of those old chips for the new MacBook Neos. Tim mentions Apple might use this situation to remove the $599 base model and sell only the $699 version with Touch ID. I don’t think that will happen so soon after MacBook Neo launched, but I do expect prices to go up on all Macs over the next 12 months. We are living in unprecedented times for memory and chip prices and availability, so guessing what Apple will do based on past behavior is unwise.

The Schedule

Last week, I had a Thursday night live stream, and I posted a video about the cool new ECOVACS GOAT A3000 LiDAR Pro robot mower.

I hope you have a good rest of your Sunday, and Happy Mother’s Day!

Eric