Autom wants to make you healthier
This small robot keeps track of your eating and exercise habits and encourages you to stay in shape.
Autom speaks with a synthetic female voice, and you interact with it using its touch-screen belly. It won't scold you if you ate two desserts last night; Autom is a very kind robot.
But it really help you to lose weight ?
We met Autom, and one of its creators, Cory Kidd, co-founder and CEO of Intuitive Automata, at CES early this month.
Kidd claims that, yes, Autom can help people lose weight. The robot is more effective than weight-loss websites and smartphone apps, he says, because people develop a bond with the robot and stick with it longer.
Kidd started developing Autom a few years ago while a grad student at MIT, and with two colleagues he founded Intuitive Automata, which is based in Hong Kong, to commercialize the robot.
Another question is whether consumers want a robotic weight-loss coach in the first place, and how much they're willing to shell out.
Intuitive Automata plans to start selling Autom on its website later this year for around US $500 or $600. But in the video Kidd mentions something interesting: They plan to sell the robot also via health insurance companies and employers, which would give -- or subsidize -- the robots to customers and employees.
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