The inventor behind the world-famous Roomba is now working on something far more personal and strange: robots designed to emotionally connect with their owners. You can watch it in action here. Colin Angle, who helped turn the Roomba into one of the most recognizable household robots ever made, believes the next generation of home robotics won’t just clean floors or automate chores, but will also build relationships with the people around them.
Angle recently revealed the first product from his new startup, Familiar Machines & Magic, during The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything event. The company is focused on creating robots with personality, emotional responsiveness, and companionship qualities that make them feel less like appliances and more like living presences inside the home. It’s a major shift from the purely functional design philosophy behind the Roomba.
Part of what makes this so fascinating is that many people have already formed strange emotional attachments to their Roombas. Owners gave them names, decorated them, rescued them when they got stuck under furniture, and posted videos mourning them when they broke. Even simple machines designed to vacuum floors somehow became personalities in people’s homes. Now, the inventor behind that phenomenon is intentionally designing robots meant to deepen that emotional connection even further, pushing household robotics into territory that feels both exciting and slightly uncanny. Hopefully, these new robot companions will help people who are unable to adopt and care for a pet feel a sense of connection.
