Welli

Welli is the companion robot of UBTech's healthcare line, shown to the world on 31 August 2022 together with Wassi, PathFynder and two delivery machines. Its job is conversation and orientation rather than lifting or carrying: UBTech positions it as an answer to loneliness in care facilities, arguing that a machine which prompts residents to speak, think and socialise every day supports their mental health between visits from staff and family. The robot is built low and wide by design — UBTech calls the proportions elder-friendly, meaning a seated or stooped person can read the screen and be seen by the cameras without straining. A colour expression screen carries a pair of animated eyes, and a large colour touchscreen below it runs menus, daily schedules and video calls. Face recognition identifies the person in front of it and opens their personal menu or greets them by name; a preset question-and-answer base handles routine queries. When a visitor needs a ward or a room, Welli navigates there itself and the visitor follows. The sensor set is unusually detailed for a machine of this class: a six-microphone array, a camera in the head, an RGBD depth camera, a second RGBD camera low in the base, a rotating lidar, a solid-state lidar, ultrasonic sensors, a speaker and a lit status ring. UBTech shows two chassis variants of Welli, one on a wheeled base with a solid-state lidar and one on a rounded base, without explaining how the two differ in use. This is also the thinnest datasheet in the healthcare line. UBTech publishes no height, no weight, no speed, no battery capacity, no runtime and no price for Welli — the page describes what the robot does and shows where its sensors sit, and nothing more. Anyone comparing it against a rival companion robot has no numbers to compare.

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