Apple Might Be Working on a Quirky Little Tabletop Robot for Your Home

By Danial Martinus • 07 Feb 2025 in Futurism

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(source: Apple Machine Learning Research)

It looks like Apple might be cooking up something fun for our homes in the future—a tabletop robot that’s part lamp, part personal assistant.

In a recent blog post on the Machine Learning Research site, Apple’s research arm, new details about the quirky robot lamp have been revealed. Let’s just say we’re both excited and a little afraid.

The post summarises a paper by Apple researchers who built a robot with “expressive” movements to see if it’s more engaging than your run-of-the-mill robot, whatever that is.

Not a Pixar lamp

Dancing isn’t the only thing the robot can do, though it’s definitely got moves. (source: Apple Machine Learning Research)

In a video clip shared on the blog post, we can see an Apple researcher interacting with two robots. One is labelled “Expressive” while the other is “Functional”. In terms of appearance, both the robots look identical. But to absolutely no one’s surprise, the “Expressive” robot steals the show.

Both look like desk lamps with a bendy arm, an LED light, camera, speaker, and possibly a projector built in. They can respond to gestures and voice commands, and their voice sounds eerily similar to Siri. The expressive bot, though, is full of personality. Its motions are so “life-like” that it’s kinda cute, to be honest.

When the researcher plays music, the “Expressive” lamp literally dances along (evident in the GIF above). Ask it for the weather? It pretends to look outside first. Need better lighting for a detailed project? It follows your movements to help out.

The study details various use-cases for Apple’s tabletop robot. (source: Apple Machine Learning Research)

Even when it reminds you to drink water, it adorably nudges the glass towards you. And when told it can’t join a hiking trip, it hangs its head in fake disappointment. I mean, come on!!!

The study, along with previous rumours, could indicate that Apple’s making real efforts to develop several smart home gadgets, including a smart display and this potential robot assistant. These future devices will most probably handle FaceTime calls, control smart home gadgets, and act as a more interactive Siri assistant.

We might even see the charming robot take multiple forms, as indicated by project leads, Yuhan Hu, Peide Huang, Mouli Sivapurapu, and Jian Zhang:

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the robot might hit shelves around 2026 or 2027, with a price tag close to US$1,000 (~RM4,437). But there’s no way to confirm that yet, since Apple hasn’t said this particular Pixar-like lamp is headed for stores.

However, the research seems more focused on proving that robots need to be expressive to get us to actually engage with them. Fine, that’s a fair point.

After watching that video, though, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t charmed. It’s cute, clever, and honestly looks way more helpful than my two cats, who just eat, sleep, poop, and meow-meow.

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