Miko: Inside the friendly AI-powered robot companion for kids
A product teardown on how this cutting-edge AI robot is redefining playtime and learning for children
Picture this: a robot that can discern a child’s educational needs and tailor its interactions accordingly, making every learning experience deeply personal.
Miko AI was widely marketed during the 2023 Christmas season promising this same thing to parents. What’s interesting about Miko AI is its potential to become an entertainment and educational companion, which we did witness during our trial. However, it’s not all smooth sailing. Miko AI comes with its challenges — the foremost being the low relevance of the answers, the price point for accessibility of the most engaging functionality, and privacy and security concerns.
I’ve spent some time playing with Miko Mini and Miko 3 (with the help of my kids who have been amazing testers!). There are interesting insights here for anyone learning and building products for children.
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Who (or What) is Miko?
Miko is an educational and entertainment robot line for children developed by Emotix. AI technology plays a central role in enabling these robots to interact intelligently with users. The AI in Miko’s robots is designed to be child-friendly and focuses on enhancing learning, promoting creativity, and providing companionship. Miko is paired to the parent mobile app from which parents can monitor interactions, set limits, adjust settings, and customize apps for the children.
The two models available at the time of writing are:
- Miko Mini: Limited, more affordable version.
- Miko 3: Top of the line device with two-way video calling.
I will be discussing observations about both models in this write up.
Interesting Stats
- The company aims $100 million in revenue in FY23 [1]
- Robotics company for Miko acquired 70% stake in AI board games startup Square Off in 2023 [1]
- “Miko claims that children who actively use Miko 3, one of its bestselling robots, increase their speaking proficiency, engagement with academic activities and physical activity by more than 45% on an average” [2]
Risks
- Privacy: The Miko AI site mentions that face recognition is optional and that data is stored locally and can be removed when factory resetting Miko. However, I am still concerned whether the data is used for learning at all and whether the data is sent to a server even if anonymized or aggregated. This is probably somewhere in the privacy disclosures (I hope). This should be something I should explicitly consent.
- Security: In case of hacking, I would love to be able to disable this device quickly. There have been cases of Ring cameras being hacked enabling perpetrators to see and communicate through the camera and microphones. Given we are talking about a kids toy here, additional resources for disabling the device would be ideal to make the parent feel reassured of safety.
Who are the users?
Product Experience: Pluses and Minuses
Onboarding
🙂 What works here:
The first step in the process is building a guardian profile. The parent is guided through the first step in the process providing personal information and verifying the account by email. The steps are clear and the app guides the user pretty well.
Lesson # 1: When building a solution for kids, parents and caregivers need to be kept in mind as central figures since they should have the ability to block or disallow functionality. Even though the end user will be the children in this case, parents and caregivers should be treated just as important.
🙁 What did not work:
We are asked to enter our personal information such as first and last name and credit card information. I would have liked some better explanation of why this information is required. As a parent I want to make sure that personal data will be safeguarded. Kids under 13 may still get their parents credit card information. Given this is a sensitive toy to have out there, I would like for more secure ways to verify the parent than only using credit card verification. Perhaps a 2-step verification would be best in this case as to assure that the parent is indeed in control.
Lesson #2: When asking for personal information like name and credit card information we need to make sure we are providing a good explanation of why we need this data and how we will safeguard it.
Towards the end, I am asked to select the type of Miko I want to pair with the app. This can be a source of confusion if parents do not know what kind of device they have. It would be nice to just detect this during pairing. In the case of more than one Miko available, perhaps list them all for the parent to make a selection.
Lesson #3: Reduce friction for the user to get started with the product as soon as possible by making integration between hardware and software as seamless as possible. For example, by detecting the Miko devices available within a radius and identifying characteristics of the device for the user to reduce friction during onboarding.
Children Engagement
🙂 What works here:
The Freeze Dance in Miko 3 was probably the best interaction the kids had with Miko. In preparation for the game, the camera detects the people standing in front in the right space. The game then plays the music and Miko stops it at any time. The kids then need to remain still and the camera uses motion detection to determine who wins. This game was so fun and worth it. The only concern I had with this relates to whether any of the information about my kids was being recorded and stored somewhere. I checked on the website on the Freeze Dance but could not find much information about privacy.
Lesson # 4: Clearly outline what your solution plans to do with the recorded personal information to ease the minds of the users, and in this case especially the parents.
🙁 What did not work:
I bought Miko Mini because my kids saw it in a commercial where two of their favorite kid YouTubers were recommending them. They particularly wanted to play the Freeze Dance. I discovered we could not play this game on Miko Mini because we needed to have the more expensive model Miko 3. It was disappointing for the kids to hear this news. The commercial where we first had seen Miko presented both models interchangeably, only after further inspection on the website I learned this fact.
Lesson #5: Make sure you differentiate the models markedly so people have the right expectations when they buy the product. This may lead to disappointment and quitting the product entirely soon after.
When talking to Miko, we found it slow to respond in most cases. Miko also got confused a lot with what the kids were trying to say. We had one Miko and two kids trying to speak at the same time which probably added to the confusion.
After talking to Miko with the prompt ‘Hey Miko’ a long quiet, listening period would ensue which almost every time prompted the kids to repeat their question. Sometimes we were also doing something else around the house and Miko would respond with some unsolicited comment out of the blue. Other times, Miko would respond by playing a song in iHeart radio for some reason. We resorted to turning off or blocking Miko from listening when we did not want to engage.
Lesson # 6: Provide ways for the user to disable the functionality of the device so that they do not get unprompted actions that can become an annoyance.
Conclusion
Miko, an AI robot designed for educational and entertainment purposes, is an innovative and engaging product that emerged during the 2023 Christmas season. Miko AI stands out for its ability to interact with children in an engaging and educational manner, leveraging AI to provide personalized learning experiences.
Miko AI incorporates sophisticated algorithms that enable it to learn and adapt to a child’s educational needs and preferences. Considerations such as high costs to get all the features the user expects (Miko Mini vs. Miko 3) and the slow start for the AI to learn about the environment and context are potential drawbacks. Additionally, privacy concerns related to data collection and the need for robust security measures are critical points that need ongoing attention.
References
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