LG's Ball-Shaped Robot Can Amuse Your Cat With a Laser

BARCELONA — We expected a new, modular flagship phone from LG, and we imagined there might be a VR-related gadget in the mix — both turned out to be true — but what we didn’t expect was a robot.

Yet, that’s exactly what LG gave us here at Mobile World Congress: a ball-shaped, home-monitoring robot that you control with your phone and use it to amuse your pets, control home appliances and see what’s happening in your house.

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The Rolling Bot (don’t call it a “ball,” LG reps said, but everyone did) connects to your home network via Wi-Fi and has a microphone and a speaker, an 8-megapixel camera and a laser pointer.

LG gave us several use cases — in one mode, the robot starts rolling around in a frenzy, pointing the laser dot around it and making R2D2-style noises, which should make your cat less bored while you’re away.

The one usage scenario I liked the most, though, was the surveillance aspect. The Rolling Bot has a decent camera, and you can see what the robot sees as you control it with your smartphone — pretty nifty if you want to check if you left the fridge open.

The version we saw was just a prototype, and there’s no info on pricing and availability, though LG said prices for all the gadgets it showed us (and it showed a lot) are going to be “reasonable.“