Nekojita FuFu

Nekojita FuFu is a palm-sized robot from Tokyo-based Yukai Engineering whose entire job is to blow on hot food and drinks. It hooks its front paws over the rim of any straight-edged cup or bowl between 2 and 6 mm thick, or simply sits on the table beside a plate, and an internal fan pushes a stream of air out through the kitten's mouth. Pressing the tail switches it on. The name is a Japanese joke: a nekojita, literally a cat's tongue, is somebody who cannot handle hot food, and fufu is the sound of blowing on it. The product came out of that domestic reality. Yukai's chief marketing officer Tsubasa Tominaga has described spending mealtimes blowing on food for two toddlers until he felt dizzy, and asking whether a robot could take over the job. What makes it a robot rather than a fan is the rhythm. FuFu offers two blowing patterns: a steady one at regular intervals, and a randomised one that varies the strength and spacing of each puff the way a person actually breathes. The body measures 47 by 65 by 80 millimetres and weighs about 110 grams, so it fits in a pocket. The outer shell is silicone and can be pulled off the blower unit and washed; the mechanism itself is not waterproof. A charge lasts up to 60 minutes of blowing, over a USB-A cable, and no mains adapter is supplied. Yukai ran a crowdfunding campaign in April 2025 and put the robot on general sale that July, at USD 48 in three colourways named Milk, Chocolate and Sakura. Its awards shelf is unusually crowded for a kitchen gadget: a Kids Design Award in August 2025, followed by a Good Design Award and a place on TIME's Best Inventions list. The manufacturer is explicit that despite the styling it is a general consumer product, not a toy for small children.

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