I’m sitting at my desk in my quiet bedroom and office. In the other room, I can hear the drone of a circulating fan, the crashing noises of my kid playing a video game, and, occasionally, the cooing or off-key warbling of the $700 SwitchBot Kata Friends AI “pet” with which I’ve been living for the last two weeks. The Kata Friends is a bear-like, AI-powered robotic toy with LCD display eyes, a head that expressively nods and tilts, ears that wiggle, and arms that can wave up and down. It’s plump and cute almost the same way the raccoons of Studio Ghibli’s Pom Poko are. It cruises around your home on a trio of wheels. A camera that doubles as a little button nose enables it to react when it sees you or respond to a number of basic hand gestures. The Kata Friends is obviously intended to charm parents and kids alike, and I can see a version of it that works as a stand-in for a living, breathing pet for those who can’t have the real thing in their lives. If the Kata Friends did just those things at its retail price, it would be a fine product. If only it hadn’t eventually forced me to discuss the fleeting nature of mortality with my child.
1 SwitchBot Kata Friends AI Pet A fun interactive toy that’s utterly ruined by subscription-locked features. Pros Expressive on-device AI features Responds to vocal commands and hand gestures Decent, robot vacuum-like navigation Can work as a smart home assistant Cons It made my kid cry Totally useless without a subscription Subscription options aren’t cheap No real power usage customization Can get tripped up on cables A robotic cuddle buddy © Wes Davis / Gizmodo The Kata Friends is an advanced toy at heart. Its color-customizable eyes are sharp, bright, and high-resolution enough that it’s easy to forget you’re looking at an LCD display. They’re expressive, too; they blink, wink, glisten with joy, and get woozily half-lidded when the device is tired (i.e., its battery is low). They close fully during sleep mode, groggily opening occasionally if you make noise nearby.
