Apple shows off a Pixar-style robot lamp that dances, projects and talks to you

Apple has just released a first look at its latest robotic project – a smart robot lamp! In a research paper and accompanying video, Apple has shown off its new Pixar-style robot lamp that plays music and dances to it, projects images, answers questions and illuminates surfaces.

Apple has been hinting at a robot-like display for a while now, and rumours spread in 2024 that the brand was looking into creating a smart home display that had a robotic arm attached to it. Now, it seems that Apple is surpassing that idea and focusing on a smart robot lamp instead – the more obvious direction, right?!

In a new research paper published by Apple’s Machine Learning Research, the project is called ‘ELEGNT: Expressive and Fucntional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot’. Authored by Yuhan Hu, Pride Huang, Mouli Sivapurapu and Jian Zhang, the paper explains the robot lamp prototypes and how they want to explore functional and expressive movement within the design to make tasks more efficient.

The accompanying video shows two versions of the robot lamp, one that’s ‘Functional’ and the other that’s ‘Expressive’. Both have the same design which looks pretty similar to the Pixar lamp a.k.a Luxo Jr.

As a table top lamp, the Apple smart robot lamp is compact but its ‘arm’ means it can stretch far and move around in all directions. The lamp has a voice assistant built into it, so it responds to voice commands and gestures, and it appears to offer a combination of smart features, including a smart light, speaker, camera and projector.

The video shows the Apple smart robot lamp being put through six task scenarios in its functional and expressive modes. As the research states, the researchers describe the lamp’s movements as communicating intention, displaying attention, showing attitude and expressing emotions – which is exactly how the lamp moves.

Both lamp modes are shown projecting images, playing music and dancing to it – like a smart speaker – answering questions about the weather, and displaying an error message if it can’t complete a task. The lamp can be beckoned, pushed away and pointed to without touching it to better direct the light.

Where the modes differ is how expressive the lamp completes the action. The ‘Functional’ mode is straight and to the point with more purposeful movements, while the ‘Expressive’ mode moves more fluidly and cartoon-like. The latter is also more interactive and conversational, so when it’s asked to check something, it’ll move around and if you’re playing music, it can dance.

As someone who’s been waiting rather impatiently for the next HomePod, I’m surprised to see the new direction that Apple is taking with its smart home research. While I think the smart robot lamp is a bit gimmicky, I’m definitely intrigued by it and am curious to see how it’ll be adopted into homes if it makes it out of the prototype stage.