Do You Feel Lonely When You’re at Home? Fribo Is a Robot Designed to Help

If you’re like many people in the developed world, you may often find yourself feeling alone and isolated when you’re at home—particularly if you live by yourself. A lot of devices are designed with that in mind, such as robots that are intended to keep you company. But, most people don’t want to have an artificial friend, instead they want to feel more connected to their actual friends.

Fribo is a robot built to foster your friendships, instead of replacing them. It’s a cute Raspberry Pi-powered gadget with a screen and sensors. It looks like a friendly little animal that you might want to interact with—sort of like a less bland Amazon Echo Show. Unlike the Echo and other AI home assistants on the market, however, Fribo is more of a communication link than an artificial personality.

The idea is that everyone in your friend group will put a Fribo in their home, and Fribo will, in turn, facilitate communication between you. It does that by using its microphone and sensors to detect what you’re doing (like getting home from work or cooking dinner), and then anonymously notifies the group about the activity. Ideally, someone in your friend group will then take the opportunity to message you and start a conversation.

While that might sound a little creepy, especially in our privacy-conscious world, the team behind Fribo reports that test users found the experience to be generally positive. Fribo was developed by researchers from Yonsei and KAIST universities in Korea, so it’s possible it may not play as well to Western cultures. But, there is definitely potential for Fribo in our increasingly isolated lives.