LOVOT 3.0
GROOVE X · Japan · 2024
A 4.6 kg wheeled companion robot with no practical function at all — Japan's best-documented attempt to sell attachment itself, on a purchase price plus a compulsory monthly plan.
LOVOT 3.0, announced by GROOVE X on 28 May 2024, is the third generation of a robot built on a deliberate refusal: it does not clean, does not carry anything and answers no questions. It asks to be picked up, follows people around the flat, warms up in the arms and sulks when ignored. The company calls it a slow-relation robot and sells wellbeing rather than utility. The engineering behind that pose is not modest. An NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX module with 1,024 GPU cores and 32 tensor cores drives face recognition and behaviour, half a terabyte of storage holds what the robot remembers, and more than fifty sensors — including a half-sphere camera on the horn, a depth camera, thermal, illuminance and touch sensors — feed eleven degrees of freedom. The 52 Wh battery lasts 30 to 45 minutes, after which the robot returns to its nest for 15 to 30 minutes; in practice LOVOT lives in a cycle of activity and naps, which is itself part of the illusion. The honest part of the profile is the price. The cheapest LOVOT 3.0 colour costs JPY 577,500 including tax, and the robot cannot be used without a monthly plan of JPY 9,900 to 19,800 — software, care and servicing are inside the subscription, not the box. GROOVE X announced on 1 September 2026 that the purchase price rises to JPY 599,500 on 26 October 2026 and to a planned JPY 649,000 in mid-January 2027, citing raw material, manufacturing and logistics costs. The predecessor LOVOT 2.0 stays at JPY 449,900 and is not affected.
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