Sony aibo ERS-1000 vs Loona Petbot: Two Robot Pets in Different Price Brackets

The aibo ERS-1000 is a quadruped: it has 22 degrees of freedom (DOF), OLED eyes, cameras in the nose and at the back, touch sensors and microphones. Its “personality” develops in the cloud under the Sony AI Cloud Plan, and the robot responds to stroking with dog-like expressions and movement. The battery lasts about 2 hours. This generation has been on the market since 2018; in June 2026 Sony announced the end of sales in Japan once stock runs out, with no announced end of sales or support in the US. What degrees of freedom mean is explained in “Degrees of Freedom (DOF) in Humanoid Robots”.

Loona rolls on wheels and does not walk. It has a camera, a microphone and touch sensors, and its behaviour, from facial expressions to mini-games and learning content, is controlled by an app connected to the KEYi cloud. The maker gives no weight, dimensions or runtime in the material available. Both designs send data to the cloud, so privacy is worth assessing before you buy (“Data Security: Robots with Cameras and the GDPR”).

The price gap is decisive here. The aibo costs USD 2,899.99 (about PLN 11,241 (≈ EUR 2,570) at the rate of 3.8762 on 1 October 2026) and includes three years of the AI Cloud Plan; after that the subscription is USD 300 a year. Five-year cost therefore comes to about USD 3,500. On the secondary market (eBay), units fetch USD 900–2,800 depending on condition. The Loona Premium Edition (robot, charging station and play accessories) costs USD 499 in the US and about PLN 2,099–2,499 (≈ EUR 480–570) in Polish shops, several times less than the aibo.

In Poland you can buy the Loona without importing. Model KY004LN01 (Premium: KY004LN01_PR) is at Media Expert and on Kaufland.pl, and Ceneo shows offers from Proshop.pl at PLN 2,099 (≈ EUR 480) and X-kom at PLN 2,499 (≈ EUR 570). The Polish price is thus 4–5 times lower than the aibo's and higher than the American one, but close to it. The aibo has no confirmed distribution in Poland, so buying means importing. We show how to calculate total cost in “Humanoid Robot TCO: How to Calculate Total Cost”; here the costs of the years after purchase matter most.

The aibo is for the robotics enthusiast, the collector or the adult who treats a robot as a long-term companion and accepts the subscription and the uncertainty around support (homes). The Loona is for a family with children: it has games, learning content and a price that lets you take the risk that the child gets bored. In a school (schools) neither robot replaces a programming kit; we write about robots that can do that in “Educational Robots for Schools and Universities”. Cheaper desktop options are the Eilik (USD 199) and the Vector 2.0 (USD 249.99 plus a subscription).