Robots are hard. Small, cute robots are harder?

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Thomas Messerschmidt

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Aug 11, 2026, 4:11:23 AM (3 days ago) Aug 11
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I just saw the update on the Little Sophia robot. (I was an early “customer” putting down $200 in 2019 and they still have not shipped even one single unit.)

Dave Everett

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Aug 11, 2026, 7:10:21 PM (2 days ago) Aug 11
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On Tue, 11 Aug 2026 at 18:11, Thomas Messerschmidt <thomas...@gmail.com> wrote:
I just saw the update on the Little Sophia robot. (I was an early “customer” putting down $200 in 2019 and they still have not shipped even one single unit.)

“…small expressive robots are genuinely hard.”

Creepy robots like this too.

I hope they have changed, but Indegogo did not require refunds if the project failed.

Dave

Thomas Messerschmidt

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Aug 11, 2026, 7:56:31 PM (2 days ago) Aug 11
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I was offered a refund several times, but I preferred the robot. It was to be for my daughter who is now an adult. 
The original video for the product lead people to believe that it was much further along than it actually was. Sigh. 

That’s twice burned for me. Before that I “invested “ in Jibo only to have the product be discontinued. The servers were shut down and the company went bankrupt a short while after it started shipping.


Thomas Messerschmidt

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On Aug 11, 2026, at 4:10 PM, Dave Everett <daveev...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Dave Everett

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Aug 11, 2026, 8:01:30 PM (2 days ago) Aug 11
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On Wed, 12 Aug 2026 at 09:56, Thomas Messerschmidt <thomas...@gmail.com> wrote:
I was offered a refund several times, but I preferred the robot. It was to be for my daughter who is now an adult. 
The original video for the product lead people to believe that it was much further along than it actually was. Sigh. 

That’s twice burned for me. Before that I “invested “ in Jibo only to have the product be discontinued. The servers were shut down and the company went bankrupt a short while after it started shipping.

Yeah, I tend to wait to make sure a product will be established before I jump in. This can bite me as well though, If I wait long enough, they discontinue anyway, like the ASUS Xtion. Great product, now no longer made.

Dave

Stephen Williams

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Aug 11, 2026, 8:39:13 PM (2 days ago) Aug 11
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Sometimes you want to grab something to see how they solved it, to have an interesting attempt, etc.

A guy at Open Sauce had some 8" humanoid robots that were really nice, sold about 8 years ago.  I'll find pictures later.  He had fixed & updated some of them, after buying as many as he could find.  Nice product actually.  Tiny little servos.


Stephen

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Stephen Williams

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Aug 12, 2026, 11:04:23 AM (2 days ago) Aug 12
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