AI Companion Robot/ toy at 2025 CES

Ivyisme · 2025-01-07T07:32:14+00:00

AI is one of the hottest topics today. In 2024, we’ve witnessed a significant surge in AI-integrated hardware, especially smart glasses. The AI companion rob...

dsmonteiro

Ivyisme Plaud is indeed a good example, but its physical form gives it specific functionality: being able to record calls.

But I guess you can make the same argument regarding the AI Bots. The physical body gives them something an app doesn’t have: physical presence in the real world, which can be comforting for those using them.

Ivyisme

dsmonteiro Indeed, especially if the price is acceptable, then why not? AI is the buzzword everywhere. In 2025, if a company isn’t involved with AI, it risks losing attention and missing out on investments. I have saw some companies are march into the AI aspects. Some companies are simply selling a story. Speaking of Plaud, they sold over 300,000 units—do you think AI was key in boosting their market presence, generating attention, and making the functionality more appliable in the daily usage? Without AI, would this have remained a niche demand?

dsmonteiro

Ivyisme 100%. Plaud would be dead in the water if it wasn’t for AI.

But aren’t we turning AI into a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Investors throw money at anything that has “AI” on the business plan
Companies put “AI” on their business plans because they want to get investment
Investors see that “AI” is a trend so invest on anything that has “AI” on the business plan

Rabbit R1 was a cool product on paper, but still something that could be an app, provided it got the necessary permissions. Humane’s Ai Pin could be a dumb device connected to a smartphone and it would still unlock the same level of functionality.

At the end of the day companies want to go with the hardware + AI software features approach because this is the only way they have to keep the user tied into a subscription when a shiny new toy shows up. For the companies it works short term (and long term if they figure out a great product), but seeing this from a customer perspective, I’m not sure this is the best path for me.

I don’t want to be tied into ecosystems that force me to a subscription either upfront or when the investors’ money dries out, and they need to figure out a way to stay afloat. Samsung starts talking about charging AI features. Apple does too. Google already has a paywall for its premium features. If each AI-powered device needs its own subscription where will that leave us?

seriousjoker

Have you read about Moxie (https://moxierobot.com/) It seemed cool but the service was not profitable so kids got attached to the bot and the backend AI server a going to get shot down. :-S

I think the issue with AI (currently) is that powerful AI and LLM are mostly cloud based. I won’t rely on anything important to cloud service but local LLM still struggle a little.

dsmonteiro

seriousjoker that’s something I can get behind. I’m in the process of hosting my own LLMs locally because I want to integrate one into Home Assistant but I don’t want to rely on the cloud.

With so much uncertainty in the world these days, owning your own data, storage and processing power gives you a safety net and protects you from the clear push towards subscription-based AI services baked into hardware you purchase.

Rives333R

dsmonteiro

☠️It’s not a very ethical thing to say, the last question you asked, my answer is: Digital piracy of language models and all kinds of AI, will be provided for free just like there are many applications circulating on the Internet that were originally paid, original applications that you can download safely and for free with certain steps.

☠️

mana_manga

dsmonteiro I agree especially nowadays everything is pushing us to be always online and always available just like AI is.

AI helps to solve a lot of problems which is great and amazing but it seems like it suddenly needs to be everywhere. It seems like it is unavoidable sometimes, sadly…

dsmonteiro

Rives333R I doubt piracy will be a solution, at least for most cases, since most of these services are server-based.

Yes, you can download pirated games, but you can’t play them online, on the game’s servers. It’s about the same thing here.

You can run local LLMs, sure, and without piracy (I currently am), but that doesn’t solve situations where you rely on a certain brand, like Humane, for example.

Ivyisme

another AI company news was pushed to me today. Here’s some background: the company was founded by Luo Yonghao, the founder of the Smartisan smartphone brand (not sure if you’re familiar with it). Initially, they planned to focus on AR products in 2024 but shifted to AI in 2025. Recently, they launched their first product, J1Assistant, which integrates Jarvis’s proprietary AI model to deliver intuitive and practical answers based on user data. The AI hardware, JARVIS ONE, combines a battery, fingerprint recognition, Wi-Fi, microphone, and Bluetooth modules. Despite its small size, it’s fully equipped.

Users only need to touch the fingerprint recognition area to activate the voice command function

Do you think its hardware will follow the path of Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin or will this company bring something new?

dsmonteiro

Ivyisme

Unless this is fully local, what’s the point?

People carry their phones every day, so they can simply use J1Assistant if they want to. Why would they buy another product to carry? Even if it’s fully local, it can still be replaced by an app that takes advantage of a smartphone’s NPU.

I don’t see any coverage about JARVIS ONE outside China, though. It seems like they are only focusing on the domestic market for the hardware and talking about J1Assistant globally.

sql_server

Interesting! Long live local LLM :-)

Ivyisme

dsmonteiro As for JARVIS ONE, whether it is just a concept product or an actual launch, I’ll wait for the first batch to experience I’ll wait for the first batch to experience it once it hits the market and keep the community updated.

dsmonteiro

Ivyisme looking forward to it! Reading about new tech is always fun, even if it’s stuff I’m not personally interested in.