Kickstarter Companion Bots, Past and Present

We have a little fun sharing interesting Kickstarters from time to time in our “Cool Crowdfunding” series. This post is going to be a tiny bit different because we had an amusing internal conversation in the Make: offices. This pitch came in via email for an Ai powered companion bot named Doly (more on that below). That got us all discussing and reminscing on the plethora of little educational companion bots that have flowed through Kickstarter, both successful and not.

We thought it might be fun to look back at a few of them, just to see what awesome projects have floated to the surface in this genre.

Let’s start off with Doly, since it is a current and active Kickstarter campaign.

Doly is a raspberry pi powered personal companion. It combines robotics, AI, and education. You can code it with blocks, and the whole design is open source. Find out more on Kickstarter.

Now lets look to the past at some of the fantastic projects that have gone through Kickstarter. These are in no particular order.

Vector

Many of you will remember Vector. This campaign was wildly successful and I believe I saw Vector for sale in retailers at some point. They were all over the place!

Loona

Loona seems to be another very well polished product in this niche. The campaign has been over for a bit but you can now order these directly from the manufacturer.

Moorebot Scout

Eschewing the cute vibe for something a little more industrial or military looking, the Moorebot was marketed more about security than companionship. They called it the first AI powered robot that can autonomously patrol your home 24/7.

Eilik

Looking like something straight out of Wall-E, Eilik is an adorable little companion.

Ortomi

The folks who built Ortomi went with a cute expressive face, but decided a simple cube was all that was needed for a body!

Enabot

The Enabot from Ebox is supposed to be part companion, part security sentry. It really went with a different esthetic than the others, looking like a ball with a camera on top.

Little Sophia

Little Sophia is the most humanoid looking one of the bunch. This kickstarter is still wrapping up and you can pre-order her now.

Clicbot

The Clicbot took a very unique approach. The body is modular and can be snapped or clicked together into a few different configurations such as a quadruped, robot arm, and a multi-wheeled vehicle.

Woobo

Woobo is probably the only bot on this list I want to hug. Billed as another companion and educational bot, they didn’t skimp on the cuteness.

Moflin

While most of the others are using screens for emoting and communication, Moflin relies entirely on the same communication methods you’d expect from an animal, just noise and motion.

Codeybot

Going the opposite direction from Moflin, Codeybot seems to be purely a bot, with a very simple and basic shell hiding an LED display.

I’m sure there are many more out there, but this list is already ridiculously long. We’re eager to see what the next few years holds in the companion bot arena!