Pleo

A friendly green and brown baby Camarasaurus dinosaur robot.
Pleo's body has seven processors and 14 motors. Photo: Randi Klett

Pleo is a cute little robot dinosaur that acts like a living pet. It explores, learns, makes dinosaur noises, munches on (plastic) leaves, and demands that you give it your total, exclusive, unfettered attention.

Creator

Innvo Labs

Year
2006
Country
United States 🇺🇸
Categories
Features
A rotating view of a friendly green and brown baby Camarasaurus dinosaur robot.
Interactive
See a 360° view of Pleo. Photos: Randi Klett/IEEE Spectrum

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Overall Rating

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Appearance

Neutral

Did you know?

Pleo is designed to emulate the appearance and behavior of a week-old baby Camarasaurus.

A hand places a leaf shaped toy in the dinosaurs' mouth.
Pleo eats plastic leaves. Photo: Randi Klett
A hand pets Pleo's head.
Petting Pleo makes it happy. Photo: Randi Klett
Meet the new Pleo. Video: BotJunkie

More videos

History

Baby dinosaur robot Pleo was invented by Caleb Chung, who had co-invented Furby in 1998. Chung's company Ugobe, based in in Emeryville, Calif. (later renamed Pleoworld), shipped Pleo in late 2007, priced at US $349. The robot featured two 32-bit and four 8-bit ­microprocessors, ­14 motors, a ­camera, two ­microphones, eight ­sensors under its ­rubberized skin, a tilt ­sensor, an infrared mouth sensor, fourteen force-­feedback sensors, and four switches in its feet. In 2011, a new version of Pleo, called Pleo Reborn, was introduced by Innvo Labs, featuring upgraded software and user interactivity. The company's website currently lists the robot as "temporarily out of stock."

A view of the robot without it's dinosaur skin shows its electronics and segmented joints.
A look inside Pleo. Photo: John B. Carnett/Bonnier Corp./Getty Images
Two Pleo robots nuzzle each other on a table.
Pleos can interact with other Pleos. Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty Images

Specs

Overview

Skin pattern modeled after that of a real Camarasaurus. Able to change its behavior over time and interact with other Pleos nearby.

Status

Ongoing

Year

2006

Website
Width
12.7 cm
Height
17.8 cm
Length
50.8 cm
Weight
1.6 kg
Speed
0.8 km/h
Sensors

Color camera, infrared transmitter/receiver, temperature sensor, RFID reader, two microphones, ground foot sensors, orientation and motion sensor, touch sensors (head, chin, cheeks, shoulder, back, and thigh).

Actuators

14 motors

Degrees of Freedom (DoF)
14
Materials

Skin made of soft thermoplastic elastomer material.

Compute

Seven CPUs, two speakers, USB port, and SD card.

Software

Life OS software platform controls sensors, actuators, and AI systems. SDK allows users to modify the robot's behavior.

Power

Lithium-polymer battery

Cost
$469 (Pleo rb, released 2011)