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Meet Jibo, the $899 social robot

Jibo is a cute and quirky social robot that answers questions, tells jokes and wants to be your friend.

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Molly Price
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1 of 11 Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Meet Jibo

Jibo is a crowd-funded social robot intended to be a companion, not an assistant. While he is cute and quirky, Jibo's $899 price tag feels rather high for a robot who doesn't do a lot. 

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2 of 11 Molly Price/CNET

Jibo App

The Jibo app manages all of this social robot's settings. Jibo can learn the face and voice of up to 16 people, who are registered in the "Loop" portion of the app. 

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3 of 11 Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Power and batteries

Jibo runs on a rechargeable battery and comes with a power cord. The power button is located on the back of Jibo's head inside the letter "b". On a full charge, his battery will last about one hour. Otherwise, it's best to leave him plugged in via power cord.  

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4 of 11 Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Speakers

Jibo has two speakers in ear-like postitions on either side of his head. Jibo's sound can be adjusted via the onscreen settings menu. 

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5 of 11 Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Jibo's cameras

Jibo has two front-facing cameras. One is used for facial recognition, while the other is used to take photos. Photos are stored locally on the bot as 1-megapixel JPEG files. Jibo does not have any video recording capabilities yet. 

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Photo gallery

Photos taken by Jibo can be viewed on the robot's 5-inch display screen or in the Jibo app. It can store up to 700 images. 

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Jibo's color display

Jibo's personality is animated by a 5-inch color display with a 1,280x720 resolution. 

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COPPA compliance

Jibo is COPPA compliant. Any child 13 or younger attempting to join Jibo's loop must also have a parent in the loop. 

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IFTTT Integration

Jibo does integrate with IFTTT triggers. You can ask him to turn on Philips Hue lights or adjust a Nest thermostat with an "abracadabra" command. Other IFTTT triggers include automatically posting photos he's taken and calling a missing phone. 

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10 of 11 Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Voice recognition

When Jibo hears a "Hey, Jibo" command, a blue right lights up to indicate he is listening. The white "eye" on Jibo's display also turns blue. 

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Search and command history

The Jibo app includes a 90-day search history. Jibo uses Bing to search for answers to common questions, sports scores and flight statuses.

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