A robot projector that moves around the house

A lire sur: http://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/robot-projector-moves-around-house_429255

By Eliane HONG May 09, 2014

Keecker is a robot that is able to transform your home into an integrated entertainment area and can also monitor various types of data on your house.

Once seen as rather unnecessary and superficial aids, the usefulness of robotics and home automation systems is nowadays acknowledged by a growing number of people and high quality, multi-purpose designs are coming on to the market.  Meanwhile “people no longer set aside one room in the house for a screen or a stereo system; that’s too restrictive,” argues François-Xavier Jeuland, an engineer specialising in home automation and multimedia who is President of FFD, the French Home Automation Federation. A telling example of this in-home mobile entertainment trend is a home appliance created by Paris-based tech company Keecker, which was on show this year at the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas in January. Keecker is a robot which can make all kinds of media and online content accessible anywhere in the home by projecting it on to all manner of surfaces around the house.

Multifunctional recorder, projector, data collector

Keecker is a computer in the form of a little white robot. It has a camera, a powerful video projection system, plus a 360-degree audio and video capture system. It can roll around your home on its wheels, projecting information from computers and connected devices on to surfaces such as walls, your refrigerator, a table, etc. “As yet there’s no product on the market which lets you have everything, everywhere, all the time, and not least in large format,” proclaims Keecker founder and CEO Pierre Lebeau.  The former Google product manager is betting on people wanting to share their entertainment experiences through “collective technology, as opposed to personal devices.” Keecker connects up to the house WiFi network and you command the robot with your smartphone, using downloadable apps. Aside from the world of entertainment, the robot is also equipped with sensors that will measure basic aspects of the home environment such as ambient temperature, humidity levels and the equivalent CO2 output caused. It can also be controlled remotely and its 360° camera can provide surveillance and videoconferencing functionality.

Flexible technology that meets householders’ needs

Nowadays the general public is demanding advanced information and communication technologies that do not keep them rooted to one spot, observes Jeuland.  With this in mind, Lebeau is looking to simplify people’s lives with the Keecker robot, which enables you to take the entertainment experience around the home with you and “ensure that it’s the same wherever in the house you happen to be,” he claims. The product is currently undergoing further development and is scheduled to be available for customers by the end of this year. Lebeau is planning a crowdfunding campaign in order to distribute the robots on pre-order and test consumer reactions. He also intends to launch in the United States and in other markets known for the existence of numerous early adopters of innovative products.