3/22/2005

If you can’t afford an Aibo or you just feel like going low tech, Takara’s Choro Mode Pet is just the robot pet you need! These little robots come with a little cord that you plug in your mobile phone, and you can remote control it with your phone’s keys. For example, 2 to go straight, 1 to go left, 3 to go right etc.

Pretty straight forward right? But wait, your pet will also understand a series of predefined complex commands like **7999# to makes the pet go in circles, **11111233# to feed it sweets, which makes make it happy, **1114# to hear the pet sing a song, and my favorite **88111999911# makes the pet see a ghost and get scared…

No need to download/install any program, and it should work on any keitai (comes with an adapter for older models apparently). As usual with anything that plugs into Japanese mobile phones, there is a fair chance that it will not work on a foreign phone. But since it is sound activated, and I am not really sure where/how you plug it, it might well be compatible with any recent mobile phone even outside Japan.

The system through which you control the little robot is called “mail mode” but it doesn’t involve mailing at all, and it seems they named it like that because it “looks like you are typing like when you send an mail” (huh?).

For 999 yen, you get to choose between a blue bunny, a brown cat, a brown dog, a green cat, or a white dog.

And it comes in a cute box with a pattern imitating the famous Louis Vuitton monogram. So, for less than 10 bucks you can save on an Aibo AND a LV handbag. What a bargain!