Former iRobot CEO Unveils Familiar Robot Prototype

Colin Angle, the robotics pioneer behind the Roomba vacuum and former longtime CEO of iRobot, unveiled a prototype companion robot called the Familiar on Monday at The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything conference in New York.

The four-legged device, roughly the size of a bulldog, features plush, touch-sensitive fur, expressive doe-like eyes, and bear cub-style ears and paws. It extends into greeting stretches and moves fluidly on all fours, designed as an abstract creature that avoids resembling humans, dogs or cats to sidestep preconceived expectations. Powered by an NVIDIA Jetson Orin chip and onboard AI, including multimodal models for vision, audio, language and memory, the Familiar interprets tone of voice, body language and mood. It makes emotive, animal-like sounds such as meowing or purring but does not speak. The robot learns from interactions, recognizes individuals, adapts its behavior and maintains privacy by processing data locally without cloud streaming of audio or video.

Angle, who cofounded iRobot in 1990 and led it for 25 years until stepping down as CEO and chairman in 2024 amid intense competition and a failed Amazon acquisition, founded Familiar...