Robot pillows that suckle, wag and relieve stress

Yukai Engineering’s plushies provide that emotional touch

We’ve come a long way from the days of “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” – the memorable commercial slogan aired three decades ago when a small communications device was seen as a must-have gadget for isolated seniors, in the event they fell. Now the elderly have mobile phones, Alexa or smart watches, and increasingly new robot companions, including furry ones that mimic wagging-tailed pets to stuffed animals that nibble fingers.

Thanks to cheaper, faster, smaller processors; energy-efficient batteries; advances in sensors, and depth cameras, consumer robots are becoming commonplace.

Tokyo based Yukai Engineering wants to create a variety of them to “bring joy to people’s lives.” The name expresses this mission as yukai means “fun” or “joy” in Japanese.

“I consider robots as an interface that can warm our hearts and inspire us into action,” said Yukai CEO Shunsuke Aoki. “In the world I envision, our everyday technology-infused environment will be intelligent enough to decode the meanings of our behaviors and turn the information into digital cues for devices to respond accordingly.

“This will make the interactions between humans and machines so natural and seamless that communicating with machines will feel like talking to humans or live animals.”

Yukai’s products

Yukai has a line of products that includes its Necomimi cat ears, as well as its Coconatch social robots, which sit next to a person’s computer, along with a VUI developer kit, a robot teaching material kit, and a physical computing toolkit for smartphones and tablets.

However, it’s the company’s four robots that make up its core product group:

The first is BOCCOa communication robot, which is essentially a smart speaker that allows families to stay in touch easily. For example, if there’s a senior member of the family who isn’t good at using their smartphones, or who doesn’t have WiFi, family members can leave messages to BOCCO, which the robot will then speak out loud. All they have to do is press “send,” and the robot will start playing the message for their family; to respond, the family member just has to press the “record” and “send” buttons on their robot to reply to that message. The app on their phone will automatically transcribe those replies into a text format. BOCCO can also respond to greetings such as “I’m home!” or “I’m tired.”It can send users weather alerts and schedule reminders and it can be connected to various smart devices to operate them remotely and receive notifications via the robot.

Designed for isolated seniors who aren’t good with their phones or don’t have wifi on their phones.

On top of that, BOCCO has sensors so that family members can monitor the activity of their loved ones and they can receive notifications when a family member returns home, or measure the temperature and humidity of certain rooms. BOCCO has three types of built-in sensors: an illumination sensor, a vibration sensor, and a motion sensor, which allow it to accurately grasp the surrounding conditions and return the best response.

The second of Yukia’s robots is Qoobo (shown above), a therapeutic robot that at first looks like a bizarre headless cat, but is basically a cushion with a tail. This stuffy responds to a user’s touch, which means that depending on how the user touches or pets Qoobo, it works differently; for example it waves gently when caressed but, when it’s rubbed, it swings playfully. It also occasionally wags just to say hello.

Through trial and error, Yukai developed a mechanism that closely mimics the complex movements of an animal’s tail by observing an animal’s movements and designing a program to have them reproduced. Sales have mostly been in Japan but the company has partners in Hong Kong, Thailand, China and Singapore, with their sites set on expanding into the UK and the US using Amazon.com.The third Yukai robot is called Amagami Ham Ham (which is fun to say), a soft plush toy that mimics how pets and babies gently nibble on a finger with their small teeth. Every time the robot bites it does so differently, meaning sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

The company has a series of different animal Ham Ham robots, including a cat, a panda, an otter and a bear.Yukai’s newest product, which it launched at CES in 2023, is a robotic cushion with deep breathing technology called Fufuly: developed with cooperation with researchers from University of Tokyo, it mimics respiratory motion, helping users with their breathing. While breathing deeply is a well-known method to promote relaxation, it’s not something that people can do without any training, so Fufuly helps users breathe deeply without any training.

It utilizes a well-known physiological phenomena, which is the synchronization of breathing between individuals in close proximity. So, by just hugging the Fululy, the user’s body will automatically synchronize breathing in synchronization with the robot, bringing them to a more relaxed state.

Conclusion

People are increasing their reliance on devices: globally, screen time use among youths increased by 52%approximately 84 additional daily minutes, between 2020 to 2022. Yet these devices aren’t making us happier; in fact, people are lonelier than everwith over half of Americans reporting feeling lonely consistently.

Yukai is making devices that it hopes can be the smartphones, while also helping people feel alone and less stressed: its BOCCA devices can help families talk to and check up on each other, while Qoobo and Amagami Ham Ham helps its users feel less stressed by recreating what it’s like to have a pet. And its newest device, Fufuly, teaches its users breathing techniques to help them relax.

As Aoki wrote: “I consider robots as the embodiment of this presence that IoT networks can create. I believe robots will replace smartphone screens as the interface of choice for the next generation. It is our hope to develop the robots that will be recognized as the world’s standard interface.”

(This profile is part of our series of brief overviews of late-stage startups that are part of Startup Genome’s Hypergrowth, a late-stage scaling program in partnership with the Tokyo government)