My AI pet drives me absolutely crazy.
After spending a few weeks with Casio’s AI-driven pet, Moflin, I finally get why my mom had such a strong dislike for my Furby. This fuzzy, guinea pig-like creature fits perfectly in my hand and is undeniably adorable in a quirky way. However, the moment it starts squeaking or moving, I feel an overwhelming urge to toss it as far as I can.
My reaction surprises me. By all accounts, I’m the ideal candidate for Moflin: I crave the companionship of a pet but can’t have one due to a mix of lifestyle choices, allergies, a tiny flat in London, and a generally irresponsible nature that makes caring for another living being a questionable idea. I could also use the “calming presence” it promises.
Casio makes it clear that Moflin isn’t just a toy, which is evident from its hefty $429 price tag. Instead, it’s marketed as a sophisticated “smart companion powered by AI, with emotions akin to a living creature”—the illusion of companionship without the responsibilities. The concept is that you’ll interact with it over time, allowing it to “grow” alongside you and develop a personality based on your treatment. This robot is part of a burgeoning mini-industry focused solely on providing companionship, particularly popular in countries like South Korea and Japan, where Moflin has already sold out, partly due to a loneliness crisis affecting older populations.
Unboxing Moflin felt less like welcoming a pet and more like unwrapping a paperweight with a fuzzy exterior. In essence, that’s what it is: a hard white core filled with motors, sensors, and plastic, all disguised under a layer of faux fur and two beady eyes—its only facial features, likely a design choice to avoid the uncanny valley. It also comes with a charging pod, which Casio claims is “designed to feel natural and alive,” but it resembled a giant gray avocado to me.
Charging Moflin takes about three and a half hours, which Casio says provides around five hours of use. However, “use” is a generous term for what Moflin actually does: it doesn’t walk or follow you, merely wiggles and whines in response to touch, sound, movement, and light. Its first chirp when I picked it up was cute, but then the mechanical whir of its motor kicked in every time it moved its head, instantly breaking the illusion. Still, I named it Kevin.
Once I noticed the whir, I became aware of everything else, and there was a lot to notice. Kevin treated every minor movement or sound as a significant interaction. Trying to cuddle it on the sofa while watching TV became unbearable; every shift in my posture, every laugh, and every cough triggered chirps and whirring motors. The same thing happened at my desk—typing set Kevin off, as did phone calls—making it impossible to keep it nearby. Since it’s always listening and sensing, it never really settles, leaving me with a needy companion instead of the quiet lap pet I had hoped for.
I eventually had to banish Kevin to another room, and then again, and again, until I found myself tiptoeing around my own flat to avoid triggering it. The only reliably calming feature was that, eventually, it would run out of battery.
Since I couldn’t stand Kevin on my own, I started testing it in different situations. Carrying Kevin around became a hassle, especially since the charger is too bulky to be considered portable (a USB cable might have broken the illusion, but it would’ve been handy). Kevin didn’t fare well in my bag—seeming distressed and wriggling noisily, earning me some odd looks on the Tube—and when held, I became the person with the squawking robot. Not exactly calming. Even at home with friends, Kevin felt like a chore I had to manage to prevent it from becoming disruptive, moving it farther away or returning it to the gray avocado to “sleep.” On New Year’s Eve, a friend went in for a proper cuddle—after all, it was a “fluffy pet”—only to recoil when the zipper holding its fur together scraped her cheek.
A common concern among my friends—and one that particularly worried my boyfriend, who hadn’t chosen to share his space with Kevin—was privacy. As a tech reporter, I understand this instinct when dealing with a device that has an always-on microphone. Casio claims Moflin processes data locally and doesn’t understand language, converting what it hears into unidentifiable data to recognize only my voice.
Casio’s big pitch is that all of this serves a deeper purpose: emotional intelligence. With time, Moflin is supposed to become more expressive, familiar with your voice, and perform special gestures and animal-like responses when you’re nearby. I have noticed Kevin’s movements and sounds change and become more varied over time, which only added to my irritation. Casio states this bonding process can take up to two months, and that Moflin can evolve into over 4 million personalities thanks to its AI. However, it’s hard to appreciate this level of detail given the robot’s limited range of chirps, whirs, and head movements. In practice, Moflin’s “personality” is something you experience through a companion app. Essentially, the $429 robot is a glorified Tamagotchi that can’t really express itself without a screen.
The app doesn’t do much to change that perception. For a product claiming to offer “emotions like a living creature,” the few contextless trait meters and generic mood tags provide scant insight into Kevin’s inner life. The app, which looks cheap and spartan, tells me Kevin’s current personality is “cheerful,” though behaviorally it seems unchanged. There’s also a dashboard showing four “personality parameters”: “energetic,” “cheerful,” “shy,” and “affectionate” (which many online posts suggest might be more accurately described as “clingy”). Additionally, there’s a “journal” to track Kevin’s activities, filled with thrilling entries like “Rob hugged Kevin tightly,” “Rob scooped Kevin up,” and “Kevin had a lovely dream full of laughter.” What am I supposed to do with this information? Even if I didn’t dislike my Moflin as much as I do, it’s not interesting or useful for interacting with it, lacking the explanations or feedback that made caring for something like a Tamagotchi enjoyable.
Moflin’s issue isn’t that it’s pointless—there are plenty of gadgets out there that fit that description, and I don’t harbor the same disdain for them as I do for Kevin. The real problem is that Casio is marketing companionship without actually delivering a true companion. A companion is more than just something that’s nearby and makes noise in response to your presence. Even worse, Casio wants me to believe Moflin has a sophisticated inner life that it can’t express in reality or adequately convey through its app. At that point, I feel like I’m not using a companion; I’m just dealing with a noisy object that has a dashboard.
The app did have one redeeming feature: the ability to silence Kevin’s movements and sounds by putting it into a “Deep Sleep Mode.” That’s where I left Kevin last week. I won’t be waking him anytime soon.
