QOOBO – the heart healing pillow

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Have you ever heard “No!” from your parents when asking for a pet? Are you having a busy life and cannot afford spending enough time with a pet? Do you feel lonely in your apartment with no fluffy tale? Qoobo can be a solution for you.

According to Engadget, at CEATEC, the Japanese company called “Yukai Engineering” unveiled its latest wacky product, the Qoobo “tail therapy” robot. This is essentially a cushion with a realistic cat tail that reacts to stroking and patting, such that it’s able to comfort its “owner” like a real pet would simply through tail wagging.

According to creators of Qoobo, it is a robotic pillow with a tail intended to provide a sense of comfort to users.  When caressed, it waves gently. When rubbed, it swings playfully. And, it occasionally wags just to say hello. Qoobo was designed for communication that warms your heart the way animals do. “Through trial and error, we developed a mechanism that closely mimics the flexible and elegant movements of an animal. We selected different materials for various parts of the robot to enhance the movements and the tail’s appearance. We also made it durable to allow for use in various environments” – say Yukai Engineering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The story of Qoobo is very ordinary: the idea of the pillow originates from one of Yukai Engineering’s employees. The designer had a cat, but since the apartment she moved into didn’t allow pets, she had to leave her cat with her parents. This inspired her to come up with a lifelike pet substitute that would make her feel better whenever she thought of her cat.

According to The Verge, Qoobo is expected to cost around $100 when it launches in June 2018. Like with its adorable Bocco robot that was delivered with Kickstarter, the company is hoping to launch Qoobo with the help of a crowdfunding platform too. It’ll have an eight-hour battery life with USB charging, and will come in two colors: Husky gray and French brown.

Now you can back Qoobo at the page of the project at Kickstarter platform, and starting from $83 you can order a pillow and expect the delivery by June 2018.

People, who have already “touched” Qoobo say, that they were surprised by how realistic the tail moved, especially with how its wagging intensity increased as they petted it harder. Interestingly, the stroking detection is mostly done with just one accelerometer inside the body, according to CEO Shunsuke Aoki. He added that despite the cat-like appearance, the realistic tail movement is actually based on research on both cat and dog behavior.

Being a former dog owner, I must say, that I hardly imagine how a pillow can replace a real pet. But it looks like robots never die, unlike our pets…

 

Sources:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/5/16431118/qoobo-yukai-engineering-cat-tail-wagging-robot

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1477302345/qoobo?ref=thanks_link

https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/04/qoobo-cat-tail-cushion-therapy-robot/

 

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3 thoughts on “QOOBO – the heart healing pillow

  1. Alevtyna Chernykh says:

    Hey hey))
    Honestly, I have seen this robot on news already couple months ago and really thought that it is quite great thing. Of course it cannot substitute real pet, but it might become a great option for those, who want a pet, but for some reason it is not possible. Well, having a real pet is very serious thing to consider, because it really affects your life a lot. For example, to my mind, there are so many negative aspects – if you are travelling, you need to think, where to live your pet and with whom. And if you decide to bring it with you, you need to go through all these veterinaries to check the health, get special tracking chips, passports, which is not that cheap. Then, the care for your pet is also very expensive, especially, when it gets sick. Moreover, can you imagine, how bad you will feel, if your lovely pet is ill or even dies, you might have a breakdown! And I am not saying about all these duties like walking the dog three times a day and trying not to forget to feed your pet, when you literally don’t have time to eat yourself! So, saying all that, I am hands up for Qoobo =)))

  2. Wiktoria Kania says:

    Hi 🙂
    I am totally a cat lover and I know how much time, effort and money it takes to take care of your pet. I love my cats but just like Alevtyna said it is much responsibility and can be difficult to manage if you travel a lot or even something comes up and you have to take care of it immidiately in a different city for example.Also in many cases when people rent apartments it is not allowed to have any kind of pet even if they are not harmful. Summing up Qoobo is a cool robot that can be a great solution for cat lovers who cannot have a real cat for many different reasons:)

  3. Gianluca Moneta says:

    Hello, the article you wrote is interesting and really funny but to be honest I would not give my financial contribution for this project. I am also a lover of animals, I had several and extravagant of them and then I also like you understand the unique bond that is established with them. Furthermore, the theme of robots has always worried me. In fact I think that in most cases these improve our lives but we must always have control of the situation and not exaggerate. I believe that a robot will never have to deal with the feelings that a human (as well as an animal) can feel. So summing up QOOBO I think it can be considered a toy rather than a robot and so it can be a nice idea, but a cat’s purr can not be replaced by a pillow!

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