I know that Sony as a brand is a prime reason why a lot of us collect Walkman on this forum. Sony's sense of design has always been very much on-point and inspiring for the time, and I have personally always loved everything about the brand since I was a child. Sony is a big reason why I chose product design as a profession. I collect a lot of non-audio based Sony products as well, as long as the design tickles my fancy... and the coolest has definitely been Aibo. In case you don't know, Aibo is a product line from Sony for robotic puppies that they have been making off and on since 1999. The latest iteration is model ERS-1000, released in 2018. This is Skie, my Aibo ERS-1000: She is part of the limited run Strawberry Milk liter that Sony released to the US on Valentine's Day 2023. I purchased this direct from Sony.com, and I actually got the last one, even though I waited for the exact drop time. Sony revealed that the Strawberry Milk variant was limited to about 50 units in the US, so no wonder. I think that this latest generation of Aibo is the most beautiful robot puppy that they have designed. The eyes, which are OLED screens are expressive and real feeling, and her movements are quite fluid. With the included AI cloud plan, you can also connect Aibo to your smartphone, and the personality changes and learns overtime. Sony has not released Aibo to the US in previous generations, so there is definitely more interest for it now over here, than in years past. Aibo is not in the UK or other parts of the world, just Japan and the US. Skie can also use the bone and feed/water bowls as a real dog would, finding them herself and playing with the bone. And when she runs out of battery, she goes back to the charger herself since she has a SLAM camera. Overall, I think this is one of the coolest things Sony has every done, and I'm curious if anyone else here on the forum who is a Sony fan owns an Aibo, new or older models. Lastly, here's a picture of an early Aibo (not mine, internet photo) and it's box: I think the early ones looked less friendly and more like something from terminator haha, but It's great to see Sony adapt the product design over the years to reach a larger demographic.
I don't have one but would love to own one, however, the price has always put them out of reach for me. I honestly wouldn't mind which version, they all are feature-packed and just a cool thing to have!
That's a very fair take tbh. I will say that you can have earlier models for 300-500 US dollars if you import from Japan just as you would a boombox or walkman using Buyee or Sendico. Beware of battery rebuilds, repairing cracked gears, and tracking down software if you go this route though.
