Live and interact with an anime, pre-order starts today: Gatebox

Gatebox Inc. has started the pre-order sale of their latest virtual home robot, Gatebox GTBX-100, today.

The GTBX-100, features an anime character called, Hikari Azuma. She lives in a capsule, no bigger than an A4 size paper, where it co-habits with the owner and the family. With two microphones, a camera and a motion detector, Hikari can communicate, register faces and movement.

She also works almost similar to what existing AI assistants can do such as:

• reading the news;
• sharing of information from the internet;
• providing weather information; and
• acting as a remote for electronics devices in the room.

Through their partnership with LINE Corporation, Gatebox could further enhance the skills of Hikari Azuma using LINE’s AI assistant, Clova.

According to Gatebox, the GTBX-100 will ship with the pre-trial version of Hikari Azuma. The full version will be released in December this year where she will be equipped with upgraded features like celebrating anniversaries or sharing a toast.

You can pre-order your Gatebox GTBX-100 starting today at JPY 150,000 (SGD1,825, excluding tax). The shipping of the virtual home robot will begin in October 2018. The virtual home robot is currently available in Japan, but more countries will be added at a later date.

Consumers should also take note that each order comes with a monthly fee of JPY 1,500 (SGD18.25, excluding tax), which the Japanese company will waive it until 31 March 2019.

The virtual home robot was wildly in demand in 2016 when Gatebox put up a limited sale of 300 units for the model GTBX-1.

Each unit was priced at approximately JPY 300,000 (SGD3,650), and all were snapped up within a month. Gatebox received more than 1,000 orders when they did an addition run of 39 units.