the robots that he lped me
These six android aids got me through my day…
This little fella is controlled via an app on your smartphone and will tell you stories, dance with you and even exercise with you. It’s surprisingly flexible and pretty tough, being built out of sturdy aluminium, and will give you around 60 minutes on a charge. £399, ubtrobot.com If you’re after a companion but can’t be arsed with the dog mess or hair everywhere, CHiP could be the ideal robot. You can pet him and he’ll react, and using the smartwatch controller you can summon him and play with him until your heart’s content. £200, wowwee.com/chip This connected robot vacuum cleaner has something rather special about it – it can be controlled by Amazon Alexa. You can tell it to start cleaning from your sofa! You can also control it via your phone, and with a long-lasting battery your cleaning woes are pretty much over. £680, neatorobotics.com What can we say about Amazon Echo that you don’t already know? Ask it to play music, tell you the weather, turn your lights on and off and much more. Install the Alexa app on your smartphone, set it up and then add ‘Skills’ to get it to do more – all by saying “Alexa…” £150, amazon.co.uk Google’s answer to Amazon Echo is pretty special – and more search-focused than Alexa. You can literally ask this thing anything and it’ll pull the top result out from Google. Oh, and you can also control Spotify, Google Play Music and others. £TBC ($129), store.google.com Easy to learn to ride, a doddle to control, and relatively light and portable, this transportation device takes a bit of getting used to, but you can be the ultimate lazy git – summon it from across the room and jump on, all without a walking motion. £700, ukswegways.com