LOONA: a wheeled pet robot hailed as Anki’s successor

LOONA is a wheeled pet robot that China’s KEYi Technology put on Kickstarter in 2022. The company says shipments have passed 130,000, and it is still on sale.

A wheeled pet that chases a laser dot

LOONA is a pet robot made by KEYi Technology, founded in Beijing in 2014. The company had earlier brought its modular robot ClicBot to Kickstarter. LOONA moves on four wheels or balances on two, and shows a face on a 2.4-inch LCD screen. It stands 172 mm tall. It sees with a 3D ToF sensor and an RGB camera, and understands voice commands through Amazon Lex. The company promoted more than 700 emotional actions, recognition of up to 20 faces and a home-monitoring feature. Gizmodo Japan wrote that chasing a laser pointer, it was every bit a cat.

A $20,000 goal, $3.2 million by the company’s count

LOONA went live on Kickstarter on 15 September 2022 with a $20,000 goal and passed it quickly. About three weeks later New Atlas reported well over $1.7 million. The company says it raised more than $3.2 million on Kickstarter. Early backers paid $269–299, and retail was set at $449. At CES in January 2023 it continued pre-sales on Indiegogo. The company says shipments have passed 130,000. In October 2026 the official store price is $429.

Fun, but rough around the edges

When LOONA launched on Kickstarter, TechCrunch’s Brian Heater wrote that “its moves are among the most fluid I’ve ever seen from a consumer robot.” After using one in January 2023, TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington wrote: “Loona is fun, especially for kids, but it can also be frustratingly rough around the edges.” He added that it was “at best hit-or-miss for both visual and audio input.”

Smooth moves, patchy understanding

TechCrunch called LOONA Anki’s spiritual successor. Like Cozmo in this archive, it is a small robot that shows character through expression and motion. Reviews scored its movement highly but found its understanding lacking. Motion may be what draws people in, yet recognition may matter more for living with a robot every day.

Does this robot understand as well as its movement promises?

What we haven’t confirmed

The final Kickstarter backer count and total (the Kickstarter page could not be opened)
The date the first backer shipments began
When and why the company name changed to Loona Inc.
A Wikimedia Commons photo or an official channel video (not found in this research)