Notes
Desk robot engineering notes
Small emotional robots live or die on standby power, expression timing and dock design. Notes from the bench, not the brochure.
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Sep 14, 2026
A desk pet that survives the desk: drop testing, cable strain and daily-handling wear
Desk pets get picked up, turned around, dropped and their cables yanked. The durability decisions that decide whether unit one and unit one thousand behave the same.
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Jul 31, 2026
Touch sensing on a desktop pet: where the zones go and what they feel like
Head pats, flank strokes and tickles behind the ear — translating petting behaviour into capacitive zones without false triggers or dead spots.
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Jul 21, 2026
Touch, voice or both: choosing interaction modes for a desk pet
Every input channel costs money, power and failure modes. How to decide between capacitive touch, far-field voice, gesture sensing — and where the combinations pay off.
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May 22, 2026
Standby current: the number that decides a desk pet's battery life
A desk pet spends most of its life doing nothing visible. Breaking down the standby budget — wake engines, displays, radios — and the levers that actually move it.
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May 20, 2026
Expression timing: how a small robot reads as alive, not scripted
A desk pet with a screen face wins or loses on fractions of a second. How blink rates, micro-motions and reaction delays separate a companion from an animated toy.
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