Qoobo: a cushion robot with no face, only a wagging tail

An idea from a designer in a no-pets flat

Qoobo came out of Yukai Engineering’s internal idea hackathon in April 2017. The idea came from a designer who had grown up in Hokkaido with 14 dogs and now lived in a Tokyo flat where pets were not allowed. It is a round furry cushion with only a tail. Stroke it and the tail waves gently; rub it and the tail swings, and sometimes it wags on its own. The face and legs were left out on purpose. Designer Naoka Takaoka said: “Because Qoobo doesn’t have a face or limbs, it allows users to imagine it to be a cat or a dog or whatever they want it to be.” The name joins queue, French for tail, with robot. It has no speech recognition.

247% on Kickstarter, 30,000 sold in three years

Qoobo was unveiled at CEATEC in October 2017 at about 20% complete, and the company said its videos passed 10 million views. On Kickstarter it reached its ¥5 million goal in six days and raised ¥12.36 million from 908 backers. Pre-orders passed 5,000 by the end of August 2018, and it went on sale in Japan in November 2018 at ¥12,000 excluding tax. Sales reached 10,000 by August 2019, 15,000 across Japan, the US, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan by March 2020, and 30,000 by September 2021. In 2020 Yukai launched the smaller, sound-reactive Petit Qoobo through a CAMPFIRE crowdfunding campaign. In 2026 the official store sells Qoobo for ¥17,600 including tax.

Strange at first, then endearing

Reviewers describe a first impression that changes. A Mynavi News writer who lived with Petit Qoobo for a month wrote that the eeriness they first felt seemed to have turned into attachment after a while of touching it. In a 2018 experiment the company ran with Hakuhodo, 38 people aged 18 to 33 saw their mood disturbance score (TMD) fall by 6 on average while holding Qoobo, against 2 when simply resting. There is also a company trial with 40 care-home residents. This research found no independent academic study. In 2019 CEO Aoki said Qoobo reaches the end of its life in about two years and that he hoped owners would then welcome a new one. The official site now offers paid repairs for the motor and battery.

A design that keeps only the tail

Qoobo strips away almost every animal feature and responds only with its tail. Where PARO borrowed the look of a baby harp seal, Qoobo does not even decide what it resembles. It does little and costs less than a thirtieth of a LOVOT, so the gap between expectation and reality is small. That it has been sold with little change since Petit Qoobo in 2020 is also worth noting in this record.

If you kept only one function, which should it be?

What we haven’t confirmed

• Cumulative sales after September 2021
• The month of the Japanese launch (sources say November or October)
• When the “about two years” lifespan message changed to paid repairs
• Studies of its effects by researchers independent of the company