RoBoHoN

Adorable Robot Smartphone

By Anca Gagiuc on Oct 30, 2015 in Technology

Have you ever imagined a smartphone shaped differently than… a smartphone? I never thought I would appreciate a phone that rids of the ever-growing rectangular shape. But I do! In fact, it’s almost impossible to watch the video below and not wish to have a bipedal robot phone yourself.

Sharp Corp. of Osaka, known as a brand-name for announced at the recent Ceatec technology show on the outskirts of Tokyo it would introduce a new mobile communication device in 2016 that is a tiny android robot—an android smartphone, literally. Its name is RoBoHoN and it was designed by renowned robot creator Tomotaka Takahashi.

RoBoHoN is an adorable eight-inch-high robot with a 2-inch screen on the back, a camera and projector built into its face, and articulated animated arms and legs. It talks, walks, dances, and connects to LTE. Moreover, it’s capable of identifying people by their face or voice and will communicate verbally with its owner—it understands voice commands, will announce when there is a new message, and will also tell them to smile for the camera—a cute replacement for the selfie stick.

There’s more to the little fellow than just that cute face. The device runs on a version of the Android mobile system (probably Lollipop), although it is not decided if it will use it going further or another operating system. It weighs a little under a pound and is small enough to be carried in chest pockets. According to the company’s statement, because of its form and the ability to naturally communicate with its owner, users should be able to feel a special bond with the device.

Its main board is kitted out with 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi radios. Its core is made of a quad-core Qualcomm MSM 8926 clocked at 1.2GHz. A 2-inch QVGA display is built into its back with a resolution of 230 x 240, suggesting that there might be an app for whatever RoBoHoN can’t do by default, and anyway, with such a cute face, it would be disrupting to have the screen onto its front.

There are cameras for facial recognition and for snapping photos upon command. The mics inside it, turned on for voice recognition. And there is something special about its eyes—they can work as a projector that displays photos, videos, or maps on any flat surface.

Additional details of RoBoHoN, such as cost and date of release, have not been decided, but we’ll be keeping an eye out. In addition, rumor has it that Sharp wants to build an application platform for RoBoHoN before its commercial launch next year and is looking for partners. Anyone?