Loraine, the Breakfast Robot

Hello! It's Yoko, a geeky food blogger.

I'm really bad at mornings. How about you?

Do you ever think making breakfast first thing in the morning is a hassle, or that doing laundry and cleaning is exhausting?

Then I have good news for you.

At HCJ 2019, held recently at Tokyo Big Sight, I found something amazing.
*HCJ is a trade show for hospitality and food service that contributes to the vitalization of the service industry.

It's none other than... a breakfast robot!

Breakfast Robot: Loraine

Here is the breakfast robot.

It was developed by a company called Connected Robotics Inc.,

and it was recently shown at South by Southwest (SXSW) at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, USA, where it won the Sony Innovation Fund x TTT Award!

Apparently the developer has trouble getting up in the morning, and that was what inspired the project.

I feel so close to this person! (lol)

You give the robot instructions with a smartphone app, and it cooks in the following steps.

At the booth, they ran through steps 1 to 7 in a single sequence for us to watch.

The robot has an arm that presses switches, grabs things, cracks eggs and drops ingredients.

First the coffee switch is pressed... then it grabs the bread and puts it in the toaster.

The toaster lever is pushed firmly down.

This cup holds ingredients like bell pepper,

and it grabs the cup and moves it over the hot plate...

tilts the cup...

and plop!

That's how it grills them! Amazing! (super excited)

Next to the cup of ingredients there's a spot for cracking eggs, and the cracked raw egg is carried to the hot plate and dropped in the same way.

My photos alone might be hard to follow, so here's a video of the robot in action.

The details are so well thought out, like giving the cup a little shake when dropping ingredients so nothing stays stuck inside, and even throwing away the used cups. Impressive!

Mr. Inuzuka, a robot engineer at Connected Robotics, explained a lot of things to us,

and they hope it will be used at places like Airbnbs (minpaku), small hostels and guesthouses that want to serve breakfast but have no kitchen or staff.

A robot like this would be a talking point and would surely draw people in!

It's still in development and not on sale yet.

That breakfast robot alone was surprising enough, but the Connected Robotics booth didn't stop there...

Here comes the next cooking robot.

Takoyaki Robot: Octochef

A takoyaki robot!

It's huge!!

Unfortunately I missed the demonstration, so I didn't get to see it making takoyaki (octopus balls).

Ahh, I wanted to eat takoyaki (drool).

There's an official video, so I'll post it here.

Connected Robotics seems to be recruiting an image analysis engineer on Wantedly (a Japanese job site),

and I was astonished by an image there.

Source: https://www.wantedly.com/projects/207630

It doesn't just cook takoyaki: the robot analyzes images to judge whether they are cooked just right! Incredible.

The takoyaki robot is already at work at Huis Ten Bosch, where you can actually eat takoyaki made by the robot!

Octochef can make takoyaki for 16 people (96 pieces) at a time.

Here is Octochef, the takoyaki robot at Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki.

Soft-Serve Robot: Reita-kun

This one is Reita-kun, a robot that makes soft-serve ice cream.

A mouse... I think? (Sorry if I'm wrong, lol.)

Reita-kun swings his arm around with great finesse to stack up the ice cream.

It could probably dispense the ice cream by rotating the nozzle, but having Reita-kun swing his arm somehow makes you grow fond of the robot...

When it's piled up nicely, he pulls his arm down...

turns to face you and hands it over ♪

Thank you, Reita-kun ♪

And there's a soft-serve robot at Huis Ten Bosch, too!

The soft-serve robot at Huis Ten Bosch is named "Reika-chan" and seems to be modeled on a shoebill, a type of bird.

Serving and cooking takoyaki and soft serve normally takes about 3 to 5 people, but thanks to the two robots, apparently one person can run it.

Robots are the best.

Convenience-Store Cooking Robot: Hot Snack Robot

Finally, here is the hot snack robot.

I couldn't find its name.

Its arm fries food and lifts it into packs.

Here's the video!

I'm starting to feel like robots could replace anyone doing simple tasks...

About Connected Robotics Inc.

Connected Robotics, the company developing these robots, was founded on February 10, 2014 with capital of ¥9 million.

It is located in the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology / Tama Koganei Venture Port in Koganei.

While wondering whether they'll eventually develop android-like robots, I found an interview with the CEO, Mr. Sawanobori, and it was fascinating.

Robots that take over work people used to do are better off without human-like icons such as a face. People have emotions and are prone to misunderstanding. If a robot has a face, won't it become a humanoid that looks just like a person? Won't it betray us someday? Won't it take our jobs? Some people will start to have doubts like these. They worry that something like the world of the movie Terminator could actually happen.
Source: Not just takoyaki, but yakitori and tempura too? A future where robots make Japanese food around the world

It's true. Calling Reita-kun and Reika-chan a mouse (?) and a bird might sound like looking down on them,

but robots that look like pets or animals we're used to, or even food, may feel more endearing.

It sounds like a joke, but some even say that if humanoids did housework and other jobs, some people would sympathize with them. If people start saying things like "Don't make humanoids slaves. Humanoids have human rights too," it gets even more complicated.If you keep them as "tools" instead of humanoids, you don't get into such complications.
Source: Not just takoyaki, but yakitori and tempura too? A future where robots make Japanese food around the world

Hmm, that's deep. When a robot has a human face, we may see it as our equal and get emotionally attached.

But eventually androids will probably appear, and the question of robot rights will come up.

It's a little scary, but I'd like to live long enough to see that future.

We want to create a world where, when you wake up in the morning, a freshly made breakfast is waiting. If the smell of coffee, fried eggs and toast filled the air at the time your alarm goes off, even people who are bad at mornings could get up (lol). It will take a long time to make that real, though, so we plan to unveil a prototype at SXSW 2019. From April, we will run trials at hotels and Airbnb hosts in Osaka to speed up development.
Source: Not just takoyaki, but yakitori and tempura too? A future where robots make Japanese food around the world

The breakfast robot will apparently be trialed in April, so if you see one at a hotel, do try the breakfast the robot made!

Home Appliances Everyone's Talking About

Sadly you can't buy the breakfast robot, so here are some trending appliances I've been wanting lately.

First, a multi-cooker that can steam, simmer, stir-fry and pressure cook in one unit (the T-fal Cook4Me Express).

I have a pressure cooker at home, but I hardly use it... and I'm not making good use of my rice cooker either.

It's like those two unused cookers combined into one, so I wonder if this one unit would be enough...

And this looks like an ordinary light, but it's actually a Bluetooth speaker (the Sony LED Bulb Speaker)!

I've been curious about it since I saw something similar at a friend's house.

Lastly, the appliance I want most right now (the Robit Mornin' Plus automatic curtain opener).

They say that if you attach it to your curtain rail, it automatically opens the curtains in the morning!!!! I'm definitely buying it soon!

I want to stop using a morning alarm. After all, back in ancient times, the only time humans were woken by a sound was probably when an enemy attacked, right?

Waking up to sunlight is basically the most natural way.

There are lights that reproduce artificial sunlight, but it is said that sunlight makes melatonin, the source of sleepiness, disappear and also releases serotonin, the happiness hormone.

I can't buy the breakfast robot yet, but I want to wake up feeling refreshed with this!

Let's all use our appliances to have fulfilling mornings!!

Breakfast at Viron Shibuya

2018-06-07