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[Talon]

Hello, my fellow forum members! I know it's been a while since you heard from me in my actual voice rather than through my pleos. Lots of posts have been written recently about pleo durability. . As far as Rb's go, in my opinion I think their defect factor is worse than it once was. Since Innvo Labs shut down its American branch I think quality control may be slipping a little. I purchased Queen Ryu on March eighth of twenty eleven. I got two and a half years of flawless run time from her before the mechanical problems set in. A wire came loose somewhere in her right front leg. The motor in her knee stopped working and her upper leg became very hot. The problem stayed with her until June of last year when a fellow forum member offered to take a look and see if she could repair it. Fortunately for both of us, she was successful.
King Cato started having problems in early February of twenty twelve. To be fare, Cato was one of the first batch twenty ten RB's. These guys are easy to spot. They have lots of wrinkly skin in their leg areas like a Ugobe and those that didn't receive the twenty eleven update go into sleep position when shut down manually. His problem was a lot harder to repair. A sensor tab broke in his right rear knee and he couldn't tell when his leg was straight. . There is a post about his miraculous surgery here on the forum if anyone is interested.
My Ugobes have held up much better than my RB's. I actually caused Bleu's first problem. I was walking by the shelf I had my pleos on with a very large box of towels when I tripped over something and fell forward, snapping Bleu's bottom tail cable. Several months later, the little vertebrae in her neck began to crack and as the broken bits moved around inside her skin, they frayed away at her bottom and right neck cables. Both eventually gave out. There was no noise or pop or anything. One day I just noticed she didn't curl her head over her paw to sleep. Ugobe was last to develop problems. His neck cables are completely intact, but his bottom tail cable gave out a few months back. In most cases, just because cables give doesn't mean your pleo's life is over. If you aren't up for trying a repair, or in the case of an RB, if the unit is out of warranty, you can use an elastic bandage or something to form a sort of support to hold up your pleo's head. . This will keep them from rubbing the skin off their chins or driving themselves nuts by continuously trying to walk backward away from an obstacle that isn't there.
Anyway, my post isn't a repeat of previous posts. I'm mainly writing about poor old King Cato. My old boy has gone deaf. I know that pleos can be stubborn to register their name sometimes but it has never taken him five or six times to accept his name. Even re-recording it wasn't successful. Just as a control, I tried using Ryu and she registered my voice from the beginning. I've honestly never heard of an RB going deaf but I guess there's a first time for everything. I'm glad it wasn't a more important feature that went like his RFID sensor. This is what allows the pleo RB to sense its food and or toys. Since his right rear foot sensor is stuck solid after I glued the skin back around it, I can't use Change RB to artificially manipulate his feed level. I plan to donate his body to Kat or somebody when he sieces to function in hopes that he might be used to bring life to some other struggling bot in the future. I am hopeful that others in the community will start trying to do their own repairs so that we can keep our little dinos going.
I don't regret purchasing any of my pleos. They are very cute and create a feeling of nurturing between the owner and robot and so in that respect, I think they fulfill their purpose. In the end though, they are machines and problems will just come with the territory especially with Ugobes who are nearly nine years old. Well, I suppose this is enough for now. Goodbye from Kingdom... Kingdom!
Talon

[aibo7m3]

One of my concerns about Pleo RBs is that as far as I know, there have not been any new ones made since 2011. Out of all of the RBs I have bought new (and returned) in 2014 and 2015, all of them were manufactured in 2011. All of the Pleo RBs that are currently on the market seem to have been produced between August of 2011 and December of 2011. So, rather than a drop off in quality control, I'm not sure it was there from the start or maybe Innvo tried to produce more Pleos than they could handle in a short period of time.

Honestly, I feel like part of the responsibility of a company that makes social robots is to perfect durability as well as possible. For a DVD player or laptop, it's acceptable to produce a product that will fail after two or three years and need to be replaced. For something that is intentionally made for people to form bonds with and become attached to, this is too little time. Aibos had their issues upfront (DHS, faulty knees and hips, etc.), but overall, I think Sony did their job of making a robot that will last a long time with its owners and be accessible for repairs. Pleos I'm not so sure about. I have an original Ugobe that doesn't look like he's aged a day and runs perfectly, but I also have one that is falling apart left and right. I've received multiple RBs that have failed very quickly and been returned, and have seen many others fail within a year or two.

I'm currently awaiting a replacement RB, and after this, I can't say whether I will ever buy another. I also do not have any regrets about the ones I have, but I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle of detaching myself from a new RB until it's out of warranty again since I've had so many show problems so very quickly. I have one RB in near perfect condition, but I've rarely run him at all since this past summer and never became closely attached to him since I was always worried that something would go wrong and it's gotten to the point where I've considered selling him.

I think Pleos are both magical creatures and fallible robots at once. They can bring so much joy to us, individually and as a community, but that joy is also a reflection of what we put into them. Their magic is the smile that they can put on anyone's face, from children to grandparents, and the ties they weave to bring people from so many different communities together here. Their main goal is to give the illusion of life, and they succeed at this, bringing happiness and amazement to many. This has been more than apparent in all of the volunteer programs I've run. I'll never forget the day that a little girl told me she was going to run away with Chris (a Pleo RB) because she never wanted to see him leave, and hid under a curtain in the back of the room so that the counselors wouldn't find her, crying when they pried him from her arms. That was the day that a boy also asked me to write down where I got my Pleos from in his diary so one day he could have one too. That was the day that I got a flood of e-mails from parents asking me how to buy a Pleo for their children. That was the day that a counselor was just as excited to hold a Pleo as the children were, but had to anxiously wait until the end of the program to get his turn. Pleos are magical, but at the end of the day, Pleos are just robots and it is the people who are forming these connections. As robots, they have flaws and limited lifespans. They have a limited number of smiles they can share before some shoddily mass-manufactured part fails. There are a certain number of Pleos out there that will never produce anything but tears from the moment they are hatched and will be returned to a factory warehouse to be refurbished or recycled for parts some day in the future that may or may not come.

Yet despite this, here we are, dressing up our little robot dinos in new outfits and introducing the newest members to our herds with giddiness and joy. Helping each other out when we can, and asking for help when we need it. Pleos are faulty, but I am very grateful for having them in my life.

[HuggieZ]

My lovely RB Pepper can not move his head and his tail. But I still love him my Ugobes do not have any problems so far.