At CES 2023 – which is the world's largest consumer technology show – T3 staff, including myself, had a blast checking out all the latest and greatest products, many of which made it into T3's Best of CES 2023 Awards list, which is well worth a read in itself.
Now, much as I love the latest TV tech or a fancy gaming laptop, the very final product I saw at CES 2023 – well, sort of, it was actually at Showstoppers, a showcase at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino – was WowWee's Dog-E. And it's the cutest tech toy I think I've ever seen.
Yes, I thought the name was silly. But when actually seeing this robotic dog in person that totally exited my mind, because WowWee's latest quite frankly made me want to be a kid again. As you can see from my embedded Tweet below, Dog-E is immediately charming, even in this pre-release state (due out around September 2023).
Cute alert! I thought WowWee's Dog-E was a lovely bit of light relief from all the laptops and tellies at #CES2023. Great toy, available later this year. ☺️ pic.twitter.com/V4nuih9XAFJanuary 9, 2023
Learning about how it functions and what you get when buying one was really fascinating. See, you don't get to pick your Dog-E – the shapes of the eyes and colour of the tongue, for example, are one of a number of possibilities that you don't get to see until you've opened the box.
Once you have extracted this digital pooch from its carboard pouch, the setup process will guide you through, which determines various factors such as colours of the eyes and feet, again which you can't individually select, it's all randomised to make Dog-E feel like a real individual. WowWee calls this 'minting', hence the name being Mint-iD Dog-E, based on to the box's text. There are supposedly one million combinations, when considering the included colour.
The way this robotic dog toy interacts is very cute, thanks to a stack of sensors on board that enable interaction with a magnetic chew-toy, the ability to walk, and a rapid tail-wag that communicates feelings through its tail – you'll see hearts, fireworks and other displays in the lights to understand its feelings.
Neglect Dog-E and, uh oh, you'll need to play nurse, as this pup gets sick (shown by green eyes) and over an as-yet-undetermined period of time it's up to you to revive it to good health. A bit like a new-world version of a Tamagotchi from when I was a kiddo in some respects. There's an associated Android/Apple app to go with the toy for monitoring too (likely useful as battery life is just six hours before recharging is needed).
It's all explained in the official video below. And if that isn't enough to make Dog-E the Christmas toy for 2023 then, well, you all have hearts of stone. I could see this robo-dog toy being big in all kinds of parts of the world, especially given the reasonable $79.99 asking price.
