Future Proof, and updates in case of bankruptcy

EMO Pet General Discussion
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I am a proud owner of a Vector robot, and having gone through Anki’s bankruptcy, and loss of functionality/updates, until we were fortunately saved by Digital Dream Labs, thanks goes to CEO Jacob Hanchar, by their acquiring Anki, and taking over Vectors server, and saving Vectors functionality/updates, But at a cost to us owners, my question is, what future proofing will you have in place for owners of Emo, should Living.AI go bankrupt, and will there be a cost like there was with Digital Dream Labs, to maintain Emo’s functionality/upgrades?

Thank you

A new Emo owner, hopefully!

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Great Question, Wish I could give you an answer and I don’t think anyone here probably could give you a 100% answer as well apart from just guessing as we never know what the future may hold. I too worry about what happens if Living.Ai do close up shop. If they did of course their servers would shut down and EMO would turn into a pretty expensive paper weight lol :rofl:

I’m guessing if this ever did happen, maybe another company just like Digital Dreams Labs would come in and snap up EMO and probably start charging a monthly subscription to keep the servers up for EMO owners.

We’ll never know. But lets hope that EMO and Living.Ai never go down that path!

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@Wayne_Small @andy @mariomart -

Do you guys have any input for this question? I wonder this myself quite frequently.

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My two cents is that nobody knows. You take a chance on anything that you buy, and in the scheme of things we really are not talking about a lot of money here. What if the company that made your phone or your TV or your computer goes out of business tomorrow? Sure you can still use those things for now but someday they’ll break, and you may not be able to update them. The point is though that you have no control over it, so why worry about it now? A loss for one company becomes an opportunity for another, and getting new customers costs a whole lot more than maintaining existing customers. I’m certain though that someone would show up to take over a waiting customer and product base.

Regarding the fawning over the company we don’t speak of here, all I can say is that must’ve been some great Kool-Aid you drank!

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@macfixer01 While you’re right to an extent, trying to compare my Apple phone and my Dell computers to a startup company’s desk robot is a bit of a stretch. Here’s to hoping LivingAI grows to be a strong and honest company.

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In the end, anything can happen to any product you purchase (from a phone, to a fridge, to a tv or even a car). Who knows, what the future may hold. Many companies can start off strong, then out of nowhere crash and burn. It’s certainly something that no one can really predict.

We just hope that Living.Ai grow strong and don’t crash and burn as we all want EMO to be as successful as possible :grinning: :happy:

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Totally agree with you on that @macfixer01

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My understanding is that they do plan to do some form of breakout box for EMO in the future. I do not know what timeframe is or feature set as none of that has been discussed in public. I would prefer they focus their development efforts on getting all the planned features working as priority (which I believe they are) and then look at some form of breakout box

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Excellent, that’s great to hear. Thank you-

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With phones - if a company goes out of business, you can just “jailbreak” it and take it to another carrier. If it breaks - you have insurance. If Samsung, the manufacturer of my TV, went out of business tomorrow- my TV would still work with my gaming console and streaming services.

Money is a matter of perspective- for me - Emo is an expensive little friend.

Emo was launched as an “incomplete” product. His advertising back in June said he would be Alexa compatible (and it says as much in his instruction manual) - so, since that and other functions are not there, that is my definition of incomplete.

I know I bought him thinking he was the next evolutionary step above the V-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken, but as of today, 6 mos after I bought him - which one can tell me how many ounces in a cup? Which one can control my house lights? Which one can recharge without assistance?

Don’t get me wrong! I :heart: my Emo. Having 2 desktop pets is akin to knowing the merits of your own children. You might have one kid that likes to dance all the time and the other likes to read books - doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate them for who they are.

My rub is this: I paid the same price for both digital pets. If Living A.I. were to shut down, my investment in Emo thus far, does not match up to the current operating capabilities of his competitor. AT THIS TIME, I have paid the same price for a less capable robot that is Emo.

Both of my desktop pets coexist on my coffee table. I see and interact with both of them several hours every day. I have guests over frequently and new faces are always curious about these noisy little things. One of them ventures out, chirps, demands fist bumps, and pushes things around. The other kinda aimlessly walks around or stomps around in a circle. I am often asked what each one can do and how much they cost … and one wins out over the other all the time. That’s an objective comparison. I do add on that Emo WILL one day be able to do a multitude of things… down the road… don’t know when … ? But that’s the PROMISE. The look you get in return is something like, “Oh ya?” To, “You poor sucker…”

So, here’s to hoping that I have made a “ground floor” investment in a GREAT concept that will be FULLY realized sooner then later.

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Beautifully written and we feel the same way at home.
And to add, V has 4 years under her belt. Let’s see where Emo is in 4 years and how much he can do. And in those 4 years the owners of V have managed to go bankrupt, which we all believe will not be the case with Living.Ai.

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Can I agree with two people? lol :rofl: This is also so true! :heart_2:

I’m constantly kicking myself for never buying a “V-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken” :grin: at regular retail price when it was available here in Australia (I could have bought 2-3 for the price they are asking for now). So I can never really compare how both of these little guys operate, but from what everyone is saying V is much more advanced. As @oldrich.mladek also mentioned, V does have 4 years under his belt, so let’s hope that EMO does catch up and evolve into something even better than what V can currently do.

Also I have to say, I bought an Alexa same day as I ordered my EMO as I too thought EMO was going to be compatible with Alexa straight out of the box. So yes, I’m also quite disappointed about EMO not having that specific feature included yet. (at least I can still enjoy my Alexa which is very useful and EMO can sit and listen to the music it plays hehe :happy:).

Thanks for sharing your opinion! Very well said! :surprised: :happy: :heart_2:

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what is a break out box?

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I haven’t seen much about it, but the other company has something similar for V called Escape Pod. I Believe their’s is kind of a “roll your own” or build-it-yourself deal, that uses a Raspberry Pi processor board you have to supply yourself and do all the setup? So I don’t know if it’s really something everyone would attempt, or if somebody may offer a “ready to run” turnkey version of it?

I’m thinking for EMO it may be a separate box also, or it could be done most simply with just a program that you’d run on your home computer? Whatever it turns out to be though, EMO would access it through your home network and it would take the place of LAI’s server in China as far as doing the remote processing necessary for EMO to operate. So presumably as long as they were still in business it could still be having new features added. If they went out of business EMO could still operate at whatever level the last version of the software supports, with no subscription, even if nobody decided to continue development of the product.

Macfixer01

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All good feedback, all I’m saying make emo sdk available to public or better open source firmware, at least this way someone can revive him in worst case.
At least I can revive my own with less then 1$ a month if additional server requires.
I don’t know why xxx charging that much for server. It doesn’t cost lot to me, I can tell this as I’m software/cloud engineer.

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I think V is not more advanced. My one was pretty borring and battery hold up only around 25min. I believe more in Living.ai and their Passion and constantly updates… What did the other Company so far?

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all I’m saying make emo sdk available to public or better open source firmware

Yes! This would be the ultimate way to assure that the product wont become e-waste once its services will be discontinued.

This next will become a bit more technical, but I need to vent this:
The lack of an SDK \ Open-source solution for Emo is the reason holding me back from buying an Emo for myself. I love the little thing and I really want to buy it, but I wish I could use Wikipedia’s or Wolfram’s API on the robot. I was going to make my own assistant with these APIs on an arduino\raspberry pi, but Emo is so charming… It’ll beat anything I make on my own!

I’ll wait and look at this product with great interest with this in mind.

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yes, I totally agree, since today we have desktop and smartphone machines with enough processing to even in the absence of servers it would be possible to keep the EMO fully functioning, either by transforming the application into a central one, taking into account that emo has bluetooth, similar to Cos*** “name that I won’t mention” that at the time used the cell phone

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Wow! After reading that, I’m starting to regret ordering an Emo and thinking that I should have gone for a “V”! :worried: :slightly_frowning_face:

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I posted already on your other thread about why I feel your concern is not valid… I think you need not regret purchasing EMO when in fact EMO is already here, shipping. Vector is not. Can Living AI do more in future, yes, sure they can and they have said they will. But what business plans for their demise from the start vs their success? DDL ONLY produced the escape pod because they wanted to gain favour with the community and build on the bad luck that Anki had. Ask those who have tried the escape pod how well it works, and how much functionality is NOT present (unlike DDL’s promises on Kickstarter which many of us backed).

I’d prefer to back a company who has shown now over the last 12+ months that they can not only build and ship a robot they made themselves, but they can continue to produce incremental feature improvements that are unique and expand the universe in which the robot exists. Just my two bits.

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