Yumi by Omate, Home Robot with Android and Amazon Alexa

Today, Omate, the company that made one of the first smartwatches powered by Android, unveiled the first Android-powered robot featuring Amazon Alexa.

Equipped with a 5-inch HD tactile LCD display in landscape mode, Yumi provides access to the Android apps that work in that screen position mode, the user interface has been customized, and the start screen offers a wheel with the main menu categories (see the photos)

Most importantly, you can ask the robot anything you want, and the Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service (AVS) will provide answers. According to CEO Laurent Lepen, the voice recognition part is powered by Sensory, AVS being the AI engine in Yumi. Down the road, Yumi could feature other artificial intelligence assistants.

When I met Omate CEO Laurent Lepen at the Hardware Club office in San Francisco, he asked the Yumi prototype to provide the time and the weather and it worked perfectly. For now, the cute little home robot is still a prototype, with a form factor very close to the final product, and a software still under development.

Thanks to the powerful wireless speakers with audio certified by Akamys, Yumi can play your favorite music from popular streaming services such as Spotify or Pandora with a good sound quality (we did nt try that).

In front, a 5 MP Ultrapixel camera can act as a surveillance camera CCTV on wheels, thanks to the remote controlled embedded rotor engines. From Yumi, you can place any VOIP video calls using your favorite services such as Skype / Google Duo / Facebook or Viber.

You can play Youtube or Netflix videos on your HDTV by connecting Yumi via the HDMI port.

Yumi is meant to be plugged most of the time, when unplugged, the device relies on a 3500 mAh battery, and Omate was not able to provide an estimation of battery life when the robot moves around the house in remote controlled mode.

Various LEDs with different colors will light up according to notifications, alerts and more. The currrent prototype was not supporting that feature yet.

Developers will be able to create and test their own Android applications for Yumi, such as Artificial intelligence powered digital assistant or their own Amazon Alexa skills.

Yumi first developer version will be available on November 15^th for pre-order on Indiegogo for $349, the consumer version will probably ship in summer 2017, the date is still to be confirmed.

Key features:

– Android 5.1 custom version by Omate
– 5-inch HD touch LCD display 720×1280
– RAM 1 GB
– Internal memory 8 GB
– Intelligent assistant powered by Amazon Alexa, voice activated via Sensory
– Ask Yumi what you want to know: weather forecast, news report, traffic info, Wikipedia…
– Music and Entertainment: askYumi to play a song or a playlist  from your cloud services: Spotify / Pandora / TuneIn / Amazon Music…
– Connect Yumi to your smart home networking systems
– Remote video surveillance with the 5 MP Ultrapixel front camera  via the remote control app
– over 3,000 Amazon Alexa skills apps
– video calls via  VoIP apps (Skype/facebook/Google Duo and more…)
– Connect Yumi to your TV via HDMI
– Browse the web
– Play games
– access to 2 million available apps in the google Play store
– Ports: micro USB-B / HDMI
– dual Stereo speakers with Akamys audio

 

Eliane Fiolet
Categories: Breaking, General
Tags: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Alexa, Amazon, Android, artificial intelligence, Robot, Robotics