Technology Developers can now program the actions of Sony's robot dog Aibo

© Provided by AFP Pepper, a very talkative humanoid and the star of the Innorobo fair, May 26, 2016 at La Plaine Saint-Denis

To inform people, act as personal assistants or simply keep company, robots arrive in our lives. But these creatures evoking Star Wars are not yet very developed, and the uses in a domestic setting remain largely to invent.

This is especially in shops, railway stations, airports, museums or congress centers that we should soon be able to meet more or less futuristic robots deployed to meet the public. They understand your questions, follow your eyes, speak several languages ​​and do not get impatient if they have to repeat themselves.

The two Normans of Event-Bots have thus created Tiki in their garage of Rouen: it is a funny slender machine with a screen instead of the belly and a small triangular head animated by leds. Of very different appearance, Leenby, an imposing robote helmet proposed by the Limoges of Cyberdroid, can also guide the people, and even serve petits-fours on a plate.

Featured Innorobo this week in Paris, the best known is undoubtedly Pepper, very talkative humanoid robot designed by SoftBank Robotics (new name of the company Aldebaran), already marketed in Japan.

Tested in recent months in Carrefour stores and railway stations, Pepper will now be available in Europe, for companies interested in contacting application developers to configure it according to their needs.

If he thinks that Pepper has its place "in all the places where we need to welcome people", Julien Seret, in charge of the professional market at SoftBank Robotics, is much more cautious about his future with individuals.

This nice media robot has certainly found its place in 7,000 homes of Japanese technophiles since last year but the market is not yet ripe, according to Seret: we are still waiting for the return of the Japanese experience to refine the uses, and invent the necessary applications.

- Robot to adopt -

"It must work when you take the robot out of the box," he notes.

For Alain Goudey, marketing professor at Neoma Business School, robots are not yet developed enough to enter our homes: their batteries are too weak, they do not understand anything as soon as there is a little noise ...

"The first reflex is + wow it's great! + And then we wonder: + OK, it's great, but what's that? +", fun researcher .

The level of expectation is all the higher as manufacturers have often chosen humanoid forms, he notes.

With disappointments when the conversation with the little metal marvel quickly turns empty, even though some robot-companions - like Nao, who made Aldebaran known before the birth of Pepper-- have proven themselves in houses of retirement or with autistic children.

Where could be the birth of Buddy (boyfriend, in English), a funny digital animal on wheels with a tablet instead of the head, who recognizes the people around him, patrols the house, detects the entrances and exits, organizes videoconferences, makes revising the lessons to the children ...

"Buddy is there to be adopted", notes Marc Gourlain, the product manager, who sees him as "a new member of the family".

Designed by Parisian start-up Blue Frog Robotics, this smiling companion robot is a continuation of tagamotchi - a Japanese virtual pet that made a splash in the late 1990s - or a robot dog. from Sony, Aibo. It also aims to become a central remote control for connected objects in the house.

"The future of robotics lies in the service robot, with robots that are at the service of the human for tasks and repetitive and easy at home," says Fabrice Goffin, co-director of Zora Robotics, a Belgian company who provided operating systems to Aldebaran.

Himself announces the release this summer of James, "a butler connected with everything and anything", who can place orders if your fridge is empty.