QTrobot: an autism education robot that moved from labs into homes

A prototype in 2015, first sales in 2017

QTrobot is a table-top humanoid made by LuxAI, a spin-off of the University of Luxembourg’s SnT. Its founders are Pouyan Ziafati and Aida Nazarikhorram, a medical doctor. A prototype was ready at the end of 2015 with support from Luxembourg’s national research fund (FNR), and the company was founded in 2016. It stands 60–64 cm tall (sources differ), shows expressions on an LCD face and has arms. It carries a 3D camera and comes with two tablets, one for the child and one for the parent or teacher, plus a curriculum.

From a $10,000 research robot to a $2,000 home version

The first version was sold in 2017 to research institutions, autism professionals and schools. Trials ran from 2018 in Luxembourg, France, Belgium and Germany, and it won an award at CES 2019. The research version cost about $10,000. In April 2021 LuxAI launched a home version for about $2,000 ($1,977) plus $149 a month for support. By 2021 several hundred had been sold and were in use in more than a dozen countries. In October 2026 the LuxAI shop lists research models at $11,900–19,900.

Children looked at the robot twice as long

In a 2018 study of 15 boys aged 4 to 14, the children looked at the robot about twice as long as at a person. Hand-flapping was about three times as frequent with the person. The researchers said longer studies were needed. One set of parents said: “It was QT who showed him how to wave hi, which we could not get him to do before then.” In December 2025 a study began with 69 families in the UK West Midlands, with children aged 2.5 to 4.5 using the robot at home for ten months.

A therapy tool redesigned for the living room

QTrobot began as a tool for therapists and grew into a product parents use at home. Giving the child and the adult separate tablets reflects an assumption that the robot supports an adult’s lead rather than teaching on its own. It is worth comparing with Milo, which was sold mainly to schools.

How do you design a robot so that a child’s time with it leads to time with people?

What we haven’t confirmed

• Total units sold, and how many home versions
• How the 190-participant randomised trial the company described in 2022 relates to the 2025 UK study, and the results
• Whether the home version is still sold, and at what price
• The founding month (sources say April or May 2016)