Thursday, February 22, 2007

Order Your Pleo Now. Not!

Well it seems that there was some confusion with Ugobe. (see the comment to this post) They are not allowing any pre-orders yet. They are not quite sure of the price, maybe, or possibly they do not really have a firm date for deliveries, or maybe, they have not figured out why anyone would want to buy this thing anyway.
They have been taking a huge risk by making all kinds of fantastic claims about the wonder of their robot Life Form and the potential market for it.
The hype was more for the benefit of investors rather than users of the product but now they have painted themselves into a corner by trying to perform up to the expectations that they created. We shall see.



Matt Trossen has announced that Ugobe has given Trossen Robotics permission to start taking pre-orders for the wildly hyped dinosaur robot Pleo.

The cute little monster will set you back US $350 and has an 'estimated' ship date of July 2007. (My guess is that they may trickle out in August and September but they will not be widely available until Q4)
This may be your best opportunity to be the first on your block to have a Ugobe Life Form pet.

Here are some of mechanics behind the magic:
- 32 bit Atmel ARM 7 microprocessor - The main processor for Pleo
- 16 bit sub processor - The processor dedicated to the camera system
- (4) 8 bit processors that provide the low-level motor control for the servos
- (35) Sensors including a camera custom designed to fit into Pleo's very compact body.
- (4) foot-switches to detect footfalls and being picked up - assists with spatial orientation.
- (12) capacitive touch sensors (4) legs, (4) feet, back, shoulder, head, chin
- (2) microphones for directional sound detection
- (14) "Force" sensors, one per servo, to recognize abuse through force feedback joints.
- Orientation/tilt sensor
- IR transceiver for bidirectional data communication with other Pleos.
- IR interrupter for detection of objects in Pleo's mouth
- (14) motors. Standard low voltage DC motors
- (150) gears and clutches
- Rechargeable NiMH battery pack
- USB port with mini USB connector
- SD/MMC memory card slot

---All kinds of cute and cuddly built in all over the place

order it here:
PLEO #TY-20-PLEO

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My name is Julie Crabill and I work with UGOBE on the PR front. UGOBE has not officially begun any pre-orders for Pleo. The Trossen Robotics pre-order page was put up in response to unsanctioned communication from one of our partners. The page is in the process of being removed however there is likelihood that other sites may follow suit and you can be sure that we will ask for a similar response, ie. the removal of any pre-sell information. UGOBE has not confirmed retail channel partners, the official date we will begin taking pre-orders or the official date Pleo will ship. Once we have this information, we will share it openly with consumers, media and bloggers alike and issue press releases accordingly. Sorry for any confusion on this. Sit tight, Pleo is on the way this summer!

12:32 PM, February 23, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Pleo was an awesome deal at $200, pretty decent at $250, but now, with the $350 number floating around, it's making me have doubts.

That's $700 if I want one to hack and one for the wife to 'ohhh' and 'ahhh' over. Yikes!

6:58 AM, February 24, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So many prices are posted between 200 and 400 EUR. I think it will costs more then 400 EUR.

http://www.pleo-web.de

5:05 AM, March 15, 2007  

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