Vibrating telepresence robot baby is designed for hugging during phone conversations

The Hugvie is a soft, cuddly creation that's designed to give consumers a closer feeling of interaction with those they speak to by phone.

Telepresence robots have already appeared on our virtual pages on several occasions before, but typically they’ve focused on commercial and industrial purposes. The Hugvie, on the other hand, is an uncharacteristically soft, cuddly creation that’s designed to give consumers a more complex feeling of interaction with those they speak to by phone. The brainchild of Japan’s Osaka University and Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), the Hugvie is designed with a minimalistic, child-sized human form that could be associated with either gender. Featuring a pocket into which the user’s cell phone can be inserted, the huggable device includes also a microcontroller and vibrators that are designed to match the characteristics of the caller’s voice, according to a report on DigInfo. The vibrators pulse at the same rate as an average human heartbeat with the aim of making the robot more human and tactile-friendly, and the vibrations can become harder or faster depending on the tone of the caller’s voice. The video below demonstrates the Hugvie in action: The Hugvie is now available for JPY 3,990 from Vstone. Mobile-minded retailers around the globe — an idea to get in on?