Thereโs a Japanese word that roughly translates to โspiritual possessionโ or hyoui. In the case of Japanese startup Adawarp, โother thingsโ refers to teddy bears.
โWe are creating a remote control teddy bear. [The user] sees what the bear sees,โ said Tatsuki Adaniya, the founder of Adawarp, at the pitching session of Asia Hardware Battle. โSo what kind of problem we are trying to solve? We are closing the distance between the people who need to be closer.โ
Adawarpโs product, HugmeBear, is a teddy bear that can be controlled remotely over the internet through Adawarpโs VR app and an Xbox controller. By strapping on a VR headset and opening Adawarpโs app, you can see through the bearโs eyes and turn the bearโs head. Twiddling the controllerโs joysticks makes the bear wave its arms and give hugs. Itโs a little unsettling, especially when you realize that the bearโs eyes are actually two camera modules that are connected to an Arduino, packed inside the bearโs body.
โBefore this teddy bear, I made a lot of VR games by myself,โ says Mr. Adaniya, who is currently a junior at Chiba University. โBut I noticed thatโฆvirtual reality games are lonely games. I want to use virtual reality to connect people. I think the bear is more emotional for them.โ
According to Mr. Adaniya, communication tools like Skype, FaceTime, and other messaging or voice-call applications are insufficient for long distance relationships, both romantic and familial. They lack presence, which Mr. Adaniya believes can be achieved through an interactive object and virtual reality. HugmeBearโs design was informed by Mr. Adaniyaโs own personal experience when he was studying abroad in San Francisco. At the time, his girlfriend was in Japan and ended up breaking up with him because of the distance.
HugmeBear can also be a way for shy individuals to express themselves, says Mr. Adaniya.โIf we are a couple, and we do some fighting, and I want to say sorry but [am] too shy to say [it], using this, [I] can [speak my] mind more directly,โ he says.
According to Mr. Adaniya, the teddy bear is just an outer shell, one that can be replaced with any kind of animal or doll. He plans to open source Adawarpโs โbear-OSโ, which is the operating system powering HugmeBearโs remote-control capabilities.
โA lot of people think this is a teddy bear. This is not a teddy bear, itโs a robot,โ says Mr. Adaniya. โOur core technology is peer-to-peer connection, same as Skype. Skypeโs protocol is voice and video. We made [a] sensor data layer. So voice, video, and sensor layer protocolโฆthat is our core technology.โ
Adawarpโs first version of its HugmeBear product, which it refers to as โDK1โ, launched today on Indiegogo. Mr. Adaniya acknowledges the limitations of this preliminary HugmeBear, which has limited movement and needs to be plugged into a computer. In the future, he plans to give the teddy bear more mobility and streamline user experience with gesture control instead of an Xbox controller.
This article is part of Technodeโs coverage of ChinaBang, where Technode was the organizer of the event.
Image credit: Adawarp
