Tech

There's finally a home robot like Rosie from 'The Jetsons,' but it looks awful

Rafi Letzter

2016-05-31T22:35:00Z

When I was a kid, I begged my parents for a dog, promising to walk it and feed it every day.

My parents, being generally sensible people, figured that it was unlikely their elementary school-aged son would actually take full responsibility for a live canine. So, given that they're also major nerds, they bought me a robot dog for Channukah.

The techno-pup was pretty cool. Sleek, chrome-colored, and able to wander around a bit and bark, it filled the pet-shaped hole in my little heart — for about a week. But I quickly got bored of the lifeless, essentially functionless thing. And that's what will probably happen to you if you buy Asus's new $599 "Zenbo" home robot.

Zenbo looks, and appears to act, a lot like home robots we've seen in sci-fi movies (and "The Jetsons"). But does it live up to that promise?

Here's what you need to know about Zenbo.

Zenbo looks like the mischievous lovechild of a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=sunflower+imac&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYhJT_gIXNAhWBlR4KHV4nDL8Q_AUICCgC&biw=1745&bih=871"target="_blank">2002 'sunflower' iMac</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/search?espv=2&biw=1745&bih=871&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=bb-8&oq=bb-8&gs_l=img.3..0l10.29898.32165.0.32422.8.5.2.1.1.0.79.326.5.5.0....0...1c.1.64.img..0.8.334...0i10j0i30.xmx57I77EVc"target="_blank">BB-8</a>.

In an 11-minute ad released Monday, Asus touts a few key features of Zenbo. It can trundle up to you with reminders.

It can "tell stories" as well, acting out little audio-visual-motion skits — though it appears they have to be individually programmed as apps.

Here's what displays on the screen as it plays a wolf.

Zenbo can also read you a recipe as you cook.

And as a learning/seeing robot with artificial intelligence, Asus says Zenbo can recognize and react to emergencies.

Once an emergency's been spotted, Zenbo notifies a prepared list of people, apparently sending them video of whatever's going on.

It can also take your selfies for you.

And place calls.

And you can use it to browse and type using only your voice.

Most importantly, Zenbo functions as a smart home hub like an Amazon Echo, able to control media, thermostats, and other smart home features by voice command.

Zenbo's standout feature is emoting constantly as it does your business.

But for all those features, Zenbo will need to overcome some major obstacles in order to succeed.

At its core, Zenbo is a chunky Amazon Echo or Google Home with a face and wheels. That expands the tasks it can learn to do, though not by a whole lot.

It appears to run a proprietary operating system, meaning developers will have to build apps specifically for this robot.

(Asus did not return a request for clarification and explanation here.)

So a critical mass of consumers will have to buy Zenbos at first in order to tempt developers to build apps and cross-compatibility for it. That's a problem.

Zenbo also lacks a standout feature (besides, possibly, emoting) to distinguish it from bigger-name competitors in the digital assistant space.

And — from saving your grandma's life to reading you recipe's — Zenbo doesn't appear to have a single skill that a medical alert bracelet, smartphone, or smart home hub can't do (probably more reliably) already.

Seriously, relying on a robot being smart enough to distinguish visually between a heart attack/fall and lying down is a bad idea

And those devices don't have to ponderously follow you around the house to work properly.

On a side note, Zenbo's marketing doesn't exactly inspire confidence that Asus can sell this robot. It comes off as a bit tone-deaf.

Though the worst thing about this product is definitely Zenbo's awful helium-child-robot voice.

Maybe one day we'll all have helpful little robots wandering our houses. But I doubt they'll be Zenbos.