Robomates Are Tabletop Battlebots with a Fascinating Engineering Story

When Sony decided they wanted to release a robot pet, they spent several years and untold millions of dollars to end up with a glorified toy called AIBO that cost $2,500 in 1999 (nearly $5,000 in today’s dollars). While AIBO certainly garnered worldwide attention, it wasn’t particularly successful — less than 200,000 units were sold across all four generations. So, how could a little startup called Robomates possibly produce a successful entertainment-focused line of robots on a shoestring budget when a behemoth like Sony failed? The answer is through clever engineering and a dedication to fun.

Robomates are little two-wheeled, self-balancing robots intended for fun in-person gaming on a small scale, such as on tabletops and living room floors. They’ll be launching on Kickstarter soon and they certainly seem like a blast. Their batteries last two hours, they work with any Bluetooth controller the user happens to have lying around, they perform smoothly, they have cool swappable and 3D-printable bodies, and they’re affordable. But most of all, they look fun, thanks to a variety of available game modes and the potential for the community to develop more.

The engineering story behind Robomates, as told by Ismail Ahmad, is particularly interesting. Maybe it is just expertly crafted PR, but we can’t help but it compelling.

That story started with a desire to facilitate gameplay through robotic avatars — think Real Steel on a smaller scale. To that end, the Robomates engineering team spent a lot of time experimenting with humanoid robots. But they discovered that such robots were too expensive and fragile for consumers — including families with kids — to justify as toys. So, they went back to the drawing board and had a revelation: nobody cares about humanoid robots. What people care about, in this context, is tactility, physicality, and low-stakes fun.

With that in mind, they took development in a completely new direction towards low-cost, wheeled, balancing robots. A key insight was that the toppling of an opponent triggered deep satisfaction, like the combat equivalent of pressing a really clicky button.

From there, they raced ahead with a focus on affordability, durability, and performance. They used several tricks to achieve that, like making PCBs double as structural components and reducing costs with off-the-shelf parts such as an ESP32 microcontroller brain. That let them prioritize tuning to make Robomates feel great to control, so a skilled operator can confidently pull of daring moves.

This isn’t a paid advertisement and we don’t yet know if Robomates will truly live up to the hype created by the story. But that story has certainly been effective and we’re excited to give the little bots a try.