For a long time, tech companies have pitched pet cameras as a way to find out what your furball is up to when you\u2019re not home. Vex, a new robot companion launched at CES this week, takes that a step further: it follows your pet around, filming as it goes, and uses AI smarts to stitch together a video from the footage.<\/p>\n
Vex is a small white sphere that comes with cute, stubby limbs, ears, and accessories in a range of colors. It\u2019s compact enough to hold in one hand, so will almost certainly be smaller than whatever pet you want it to film.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s autonomous enough to follow your cat or dog around the house and play with them, and uses visual recognition to identify specific pets. It films as it goes, catching low-angle footage that should come a little closer to your pet\u2019s perspective, and cuts each day\u2019s footage into \u201cmoving narratives and shareable stories.\u201d Manufacturer FrontierX hasn\u2019t actually shared an example of that edited footage though, which will be the real test of whether this is worthwhile.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s joined by Aura, a larger spherical bot with a circular screen for a face. This is being sold more as a companion bot for people, with the ability to read body language and facial expressions to understand your mood. Like Vex it can follow you around, and even talk to you with the help of LLM-powered conversational features.<\/p>\n
Vex and Aura are both still in development \u2014 FrontierX is in such an early stage that it doesn\u2019t even have a website live yet, just a barebones Instagram page<\/a>. Still, the company says it will be ready to take preorders in the next six months, though hasn\u2019t said how much either robot will cost.<\/p>\n