Omate has predominantly been known as a company that creates smartwatches. They’ve had success via crowdfunding and have been making their smartwatches even smarter via full cellular connectivity as well as Alexa integration. Omate is building on their smartwatch experience, and have announced Omate Yumi — your own personal robot assistant built on Android, with Alexa capabilities.
The jump from smartwatch to robot isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. One main obvious difference is that you won’t be strapping Yumi to your wrist, but you will be able to have some of the same types of control over apps and services, along with quite a few more that you won’t be able to do from your watch.
The Omate Yumi has been in development for more than a year, during which time Omate has been busy working on every aspect of the robot, from UI, to AI, to design. Omate Founder & CEO Laurent Le Pen had this to say about the process:
We have spent over a year from design to engineering in order to give birth to Yumi. It required deep Android software customization to combine high-end audio and state-of-the-art AI into its complex mechanical design. Yumi has been built on AI from the ground up, it is an incredibly smart and cute robot; a personal assistant, a music hub and a smart-home control point all in one.
On paper, Yumi looks to be awfully impressive, boasting some great skills due to the Android and Alexa integrations.
Artificial Intelligence
Ask anything you want to Yumi all of this is done by speaking with Yumi.
Interact with Yumi and Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service (AVS) just like you do with your Amazon Echo.Powerful Wireless Speakers
Best-in-class stereo sound system for music lovers, Yumi delivers crystal clear sound – Audio Certified by Arkamys – and fits anywhere offering the most vibrant sound ever heard from a stereo mobile wireless speaker. Yumi automatically detects the sound source location thanks to its five embedded microphones so Yumi will look at you when you ask him a question.
Video Call / Remote Camera Surveillance
Run any VoIP Android apps for Family video calls such as Skype/Google Duo/Viber and many others. Yumi can also act as a video camera surveillance CCTV via its embedded high quality UltraPixel front camera; and yes! Yumi can move via its embedded rotor engines and through the companion monitoring app so you can remotely check your home wherever you are directly from your smartphone.
Smart Home Connectivity
Connect the most popular smart home networking systems via their Alexa skills. Connect Yumi to your TV either via Cast or HDMI and browse Internet from the front HD touch color display; play online videos and download apps and games from 3rd party application stores.
Full Android / Developer Friendly
Offer full Android ecosystem to developers to create and test their own applications.
Port any Artificial Intelligence on top of Yumi; customize and test your own Android Apps and Amazon Alexa Skills.
Yumi will be available for pre-order starting on November 15th, with orders expected to ship in March 2017. The Omate Yumi Limited Developer Edition will be your earliest chance to snag this robot on Indiegogo (the Indiegogo page isn’t live yet, but will live at that link once it is), and at a good discount too. You’ll be able to pre-order Yumi at $349, which is $250 off of the expected retail price of $599. If you like what you see, Indiegogo will be the place to get on board for the best price. You can check out a quick look at Yumi in the video below.
You can also register at Omate.com for updates as Yumi gets closer to release. What do you think about the Omate Yumi robot? Tell us all about it in the comment section below, or on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter.
