When you think about a humanoid robot, what comes to your mind? A tall standing piece of hardware with wheels at the bottom and a head with cameras and sensors right? Yes, add a touchscreen on its chest and independently moving arms and you get a SoftBank Pepper. It is the closest thing to the famous C-3PO, which you will find in the market. But it’s not about always looks right? So what can this thing do? The designers claim that they have made Pepper as a genuine day-to-day companion. According to them, its number one quality is to perceive emotions. It is the first robot to come in the market which is capable of recognizing the principal human emotions and adapting his behavior to the mood of his interlocutor. Since it is such an appealing piece of machine, over 140 SoftBank Mobile stores are using it to as a new way of welcoming, informing and amusing their customers. It is also the first humanoid personal robot to be adopted at homes in Japan. It is so appealing and successful at what it does that; Pizza Hut is about to use this to take order from the customers at the stores. How impressive is that? Starting with a friendly hello, Pepper will help Pizza Hut visitors make menu selections with personalized recommendations and special offers.
The SoftBank Pepper robot is not the one for you if you are looking for something which will help you do your day-to-day tasks. You might be better off with an Amazon Echo or maybe something else in that case. This is a humanoid robot which will talk to you and interact wit you and have meaningful conversations. Pepper can recognize your face, speak, hear you and move around autonomously. It loves interacting with you and will learn more about your tastes, your habits and understand you better. Pepper is designed to identify your emotions and select the behavior best suited to the situation. As mentioned earlier, in Japan Pepper is also available to individuals who want to use it at home personally. The company says that it has sold over 7,000 units to consumers and companies. It also allows developers to build more meaningful apps, etc. as well. Developers can already use Python and C++ to build advanced apps for Pepper. But the only possible issue which you as a consumer can face is the availability. Pepper is currently available in Japan only, and the developer version of the same retails for about $1,800. This is the one that you should be looking at if want to spice things up with your home automation.
