While I have always been a person who is intrigued by the latest and greatest tech shiny object I recently stumbled on the mother of all shiny objects. It’s called Jibo and for a price tag of $499 you can have the world’s first family robot. 

Jibo, who reminds me of a digital cyclops, is a robot servant that can

1. See: Jibo can recognize and track faces, capture pictures and enable video calling.
2. Learn: Jibos artificial intelligence learns your preferences. (example Jibo will remember that you like Chinese food or pizza when you tell it to order you take out)
3. Speak: Jibo will provide reminders from your calendar and read emails, texts and messages to you.
4. Hear: Jibo’s 360 degree microphone lets you talk to it from anywhere in the room.
5. Help: Like a personal assistant, this device “makes simpler tasks easier”
6. Relate: Jibo communicates and expresses using natural social and emotive cues so you can “understand each other better”

Take a moment and check out this promotional video…

While initially I was really impressed I caught myself wondering do we really need a robot to do all of these things?

Is it really that difficult to pick up a phone and order take out?

Can we really not take the time to capture our own memories on our phone’s and camera’s?

Do we truly need robot to entertain us?

The answer is no. Technology is being created to make even the simplest tasks “easier” but in my opinion it just feels like overkill.

Also, is anyone else creeped out by having a robot that can literally follow and listen to you in the privacy of your home at any hour of the day?

Is Jibo cool? Yes. Will I buy it? I doubt it. I feel Jibo is the ultimate shiny object and an item that is simply overkill.

Now when it comes to “Smart Home” technology that DOES excite me I think of all the amazing things our team saw at this years Consumer Electronics show. Here are our top picsk.

Do inventions like Jibo excite or scare you?