A Kickstarter campaign has been started for a robotics project called "Keecker," an egg-shaped machine designed to be your new entertainment center.
With its built-in projector and speaker array, Keecker lets you watch movies and play games on any wall in your house, as well as look at digital art, according to The Verge. It also comes with a 360-degree camera on top of its head so it can see objects around it.
Users will be able to name each room after the robot maps them, and then tap a button to tell the machine to go to the room they choose. The device can also be set to "detection mode" when the owner is out doing errands, as well as keep track of temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels. It can also receive video calls and voice commands, and it can follow its owner around during a call when paired with his/her phone.
Pierre Lebeau, Keecker's creator and ex-project manager for Google in Paris, came up with the idea for the robot while taking a ride on his bike, The Verge reported.
"I thought, what if I had a robot that could move around my house and turn any room into the home entertainment system," he said, adding that he woke up the next morning at 3 a.m., "and wrote a 10-page proposal and since then I've been working to execute on it."
The prototype was show to be able to work with any app downloaded from the Play Store since it has the same quadcore mobile chip that a regular smartphone has. The native interface for these apps has trouble working, which Lebeau looks to fix with the release of an SDK and API, as well as with the development of native apps for the home.
Additional features include Wi-Fi, a projection lamp that user can adjust, and a battery that can last for several days without a recharge, Tech Xplore reported. The company says Keecker won't work like Roomba and run into walls to figure out where it should and shouldn't go.
Users will also be able to call the robot to do things while they are in other rooms, such as putting on some music while the owner is preparing a meal.
Lebeau is aiming for a price between $3,000 and $4,000 for Keecker, The Verge reported. The goal for the Kickstarter is to raise $100,000 so the company can release the robot to consumers starting in April 2015.
