Sharp’s Cocorobo vacuum has good looks and multilingual charm

May 25th, 2012

“Hello, long time no see,” says Cocorobo, a robotic vacuum cleaner with a little “heart engine”.

Cocorobo, named after the Japanese word for ‘heart’ which is ‘kokoro’, is Sharp’s foray into the floor cleaning market.

Button shaped and sensitive to boot the Samsung NaviBot look-a-like can communicate with its owner in three languages: Japanese, Chinese and English, as well as the Kansai dialect of Osaka where Sharp is based. The Kansai dialect is considered a fun and hip language in Japan.

When asked, “How’s it going?” it answers, “I’m cool and good!” So far, Cocorobo has 36 set phrases.

According to a translation from Sharp’s website, the emotional vacuum cleaner has a “heart engine” and is a “home appliance to provide peace of mind to life.”

Good looks and charm aside, Cocorobo is a smart cookie, with infrared sensors for avoiding bumping into furniture.

A built-in camera with an LED light enables a Cocorobo-eyed view of the world and the room around it, to gauge levels of cleanliness or work left to be done – this is all viewed from a smartphone! Its movements may be remote controlled by the smartphone as well.

Cocorobo is set to hit Japanese retail stores next month for $1,600, followed by China. When and where after that hasn’t been revealed by the electronics company, though it has said it intends to produce 4,000 Cocorobos a month plus another 6,000 without the speech communication.

Keri Algar

Having once had to sit on the washing machine to stop it from bouncing into oblivion, Keri is today delighted with the new (smoother running) technologies that make housework easier every day. A self-confessed lazy-bones, Keri seeks out quirky inventions that ease the human workload, such as the robotic vacuum cleaner (wow). And as soon as someone figures out a Jetsons-like self-cleaning house, she will happily lay her pen to rest and retire from appliance journalism. Until then, her pick is a fridge that will tell her smartphone when it's time to pick up more beer on the way home. Magic.