This product is one of the most uncanny things I have seen. The ConnectR is for visiting people while you are somewhere else, by way of a small red circular robot that you can remote control, and which transmits sound and video.
The parallels to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis are unbearable. You have been transformed into a small robot, and people will view you as such.
What would you use it for? According to the materials:
- Participate in family moments even though you’re working late
- On a business trip? Read your kids a story and see their faces light up
Fun and awkwardness ensues when everybody is seated at the table, but dad is stuck on the floor.
“Dad is busy, but he is visiting us as a vacuum-like red robot. Don’t step on him.”
It is such a downer to be the only avatar in the room.
I’m not sure which is more uncanny – the product’s existence itself, or the suggested use of “reading your kids a story”.
Next thing you know, we’ll be able to buy a Gregor Samsa hideous beetle skin(TM) for that robot.