KEYi Technology (KEYi Tech)

KEYi Technology, KEYi Tech for short, is a company from Shenzhen founded in 2016. Shenzhen is one of the main centres of Chinese consumer electronics, so it is no surprise that the company aimed from the start at a consumer product rather than an industrial one. Its most important product is Loona, a companion robot in the form of a small pet that responds with movement, expressions and sound, and offers games and simple educational features. Loona was shown in January 2021 and reached sale in January 2022. Our sources contain no data on funding, headcount or sales scale, so we give no figures and do not estimate how many robots the company has sold. What is known is that the company rests on one clearly defined idea: the robot is not meant to do work but to keep company, most often with children and families. The segment of home companion robots is described at greater length in the category “Home robots”, and why people buy them is covered by homes. For scale: it is an entertainment and educational product, not a functional one like a vacuum cleaner, so its main market remains gifts and children's play.

In the catalogue KEYi Tech has one model: Loona Petbot in the Premium Edition. The robot moves on wheels, has a camera, a microphone and touch sensors, and its behaviour, from expressions to mini-games and educational content, is controlled by a mobile app connected to the manufacturer's cloud. More precisely, the Premium set, meaning Loona with a charging station and play accessories, costs 499 dollars in the United States, which comes to about 1.9 thousand zloty. Actual prices in Polish shops are higher: according to Ceneo, Proshop.pl offers it for 2,099 zloty and X-kom.pl for 2,499 zloty. Because the robot has a camera and connects to the cloud, it is worth reading “Data Security: Robots with Cameras and the GDPR” first. It is a toy with a rich interaction layer, not a tool for professional tasks or for learning technology in the strict sense, which is clear when we compare it with the kits in “Educational Robots for Schools and Universities”. We describe only the Premium version, because other variants are not in the catalogue. Weight, dimensions and battery life are not given, so we do not state these parameters rather than guess them.

Loona targets the same segment as Sony aibo ERS-1000 and Vector 2.0, only in a lower price bracket. Among desktop and family robots in the catalogue there are also EMO from Living.AI and the pet cameras Enabot EBO Air 2, which put more emphasis on home monitoring. Loona's advantage over many rivals is real presence in Polish mass-market channels, which we describe below. Its weakness is that operation depends on the app and the cloud, so years later support for the product may change. This problem is illustrated by an educational kit that its maker withdrew from sale, in the profile of LEGO Education. We have no hard data on market shares, so we do not claim that Loona is the most popular robot of its type. We only know that it is more widely available than most competitors in this category and that its price is clearly lower than that of the Sony model.

KEYi Tech is one of the few manufacturers in this group whose robot is actually available on Polish shelves. Loona Premium Edition, model KY004LN01, is listed at Media Expert, on Kaufland.pl and on the price comparison site Ceneo, that is, in mass-market channels and not only in specialist robotics shops. For the buyer this means a purchase without importing and with the local seller's warranty. According to Ceneo prices start at 2,099 zloty, so the current offer should be checked before buying.

Loona is a sensible choice for a family that wants a toy robot with real interaction and prefers to buy it in a Polish shop. The strong side is availability and a lower price than competitors. The weak side is the dependence on the cloud and the app, and the lack of technical data. For a school or for learning technology, an educational kit is a better choice than a pet robot, and price and warranty terms are worth comparing across several shops.