Pocket monsters.
Truth be told, I’m not really a handbag enthusiast; with the hardware I’m lugging around, a rucksack usually makes more sense. However, I am very pro weighing a backpack down with cute keyrings and whimsical bag charms. The practically vintage, chunky Pikachu bag charm currently attached to my rucksack is my pride and joy.
That said, I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on hanging out with this handbag robot from Yukai Engineering (via TechCrunch). Revealed at CES 2025, the fluffy, sloth-like robot is called Mirumi and in theory is intended to “delight bystanders” with subtle, spontaneous gestures such as “spontaneously [turning] its head to steal a glance at a nearby person.”
According to the official Mirumi website, this head-turning behaviour is designed to “re-create people’s joyful experiences of noticing a human baby as he/she tries to interact with them.” You’ll also likely be waiting a while before you can take your own animated bag buddy home, as the website also reveals that a crowdfunding campaign will start during the Autumn of 2025.
Mirumi is far from Yukai Engineering’s first attempt to capture, bottle, and sell such cuteness. Over the years, the company has released a selection of fluffy tech taking inspiration from our furry friends. This has resulted in the Qooba cat pillow, a pillow with a motorised waggy tail that reacts to touch, and the Amagami Ham Ham, a line of plush toy cats and dogs that will ‘play bite’ your fingers should you jam your digits into their mouth. Different strokes, and all that.
The Mirumi handbag robot is a little more sophisticated than these previous offerings from Yukai Engineering, with onboard motion and proximity sensors allowing the robot to respond to nearby movement. As such, the head-turning motion is leveraged to portray a range of emotions, such as curiously looking around when you first pick up your bag, or even a shake of the head should you then place your bag on a jiggling, restless leg.
Yukai Engineering write, “Mirumi moves its head in several different ways to express its curiosity, bashfulness and other baby-like qualities and emotions.”
I respect the vision—after all, I have a well-established interest in fluffy hardware. However, the slow rotation of Mirumi’s head coupled with its beady little eyes feels to me a lot closer to a glare of judgement over my recent spending decisions. Come on now Mirumi, don’t look at me like that—there was a sale on Steam! Mind you, with a reported price tag in the region of $70 according to The Verge, maybe the little guy is just feeling a wee bit existential.
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