What if the Pixar Lamp came to life? Human Computer Lab, a research lab building expressive robots, today announced LeLamp, an open-source robot lamp for the home. First previewed in August, LeLamp brings character and motion to lighting: it looks where you point, reacts to voices, and performs playful “gestures” that make it feel alive while remaining simple enough to assemble in about two hours.
Human Computer Lab recently raised a $500,000 pre-seed (SAFE) round from South Park Commons and FR8.
“When families walk into a robot store in a few years, they won’t pick a five-foot humanoid for the living room, they’ll choose something expressive, safe, and companion-like,” said Shahvir Sarkary, Founder & CEO of Human Computer Lab. “LeLamp is our first step toward a friendly operating system for home robots; approachable machines you enjoy living with.”
Earlier this year, Human Computer Lab ran rapid experiments at FR8, a hacker hotel in Finland, exploring new human-computer interaction paradigms. Every two weeks, the team shipped prototypes, from AI-powered cameras to new interfaces for large language models. After extensive testing, they chose to launch LeLamp: a robot you can assemble in two hours, build like Lego, and actually want in your home.
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LeLamp is also fully open source and anyone can access its code and hardware, and a global community of 320+ roboticists from companies like DeepMind, Logitech and X Moonshot Factory (Google) have signed up for pilots. A total of 51 people are on the pilot pre-order interest list.
“In a future where we walk and work alongside robots, it’s not hard to imagine that we’ll want ones to play with, as well. New interactive paradigms often begin as toys, and we’re excited to see the Human Computer Lab explore that design space,” said Gopal Raman, Principal at South Park Commons.
LeLamp is currently in limited pilots. Interested contributors and early adopters can join the waitlist and access the open-source repository.
Looking ahead, Human Computer Lab’s vision is to use design and intentionality to create expressive robots as the first robots that we truly love — starting with LeLamp, but building a platform for many more. “Our robots will be the first ones in people’s homes,” says Sarkary.
About Human Computer Lab
Human Computer Lab is a research lab focused on building new human-computer interaction paradigms. They are building emotional and expressive robots.
About SPC
SPC is a home for the most talented technologists and founders figuring out what’s next. We are a community designed to turn the illegible into the inevitable.
