While many people have learned to stay in touch with loved ones, friends, and colleagues through videoconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduction of face-to-face interaction has boosted a market for robots providing substitutes for physical human contact.
"Healing robots," such as the cuddly humanoid Lovot developed by Groove X Inc., Sony Corp.'s Aibo robotic dog, and Qoobo, a furry cushion with a tail that moves in reaction to strokes developed by Yukai Engineering Inc., are seeing sharp sales rises, the companies say.
Lovot and Aibo can gather data on the well-being of their owners and report it remotely, which is why some people are gifting the automatons to their older parents living far away whom they are refraining from visiting due to infection risks.