Felix, the social robot from Happybots

Interactive play

A buddy to whom you can tell how you feel. A social robot for those who have trouble expressing their emotions. Felix has already been successfully integrated into healthcare settings (homecare, GGZ, VG, Jeugdzorg) for individuals with disabilities, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or psychiatric conditions. Felix has also been successful in (special) education for vulnerable children.

Facts & Results

Complete hardware development: Development of schematic, PCB, and firmware. From prototype to product.
Remote interactive management: Felix's emotions can be adjusted remotely. Changes are then displayed in the dashboard.
End-to-end support: Beyond development and validation, we helped Happybots in finding the right partners and optimizing production.

Client

Technology

IoT Hardware

Social Robotics

Cloud Monitoring

Remote Management

Prototype Development

What can Felix do

Felix can be happy, sad, upset, or joyful. When Felix is twisted, his color and eyes change. As soon as Felix expresses the best representation of how you are feeling, you can then press Felix so that he winks at you and saves your input into the mood calendar. In the personal dashboard within the Happybots platform, the calendar can be seen with insight into the mood trends and patterns.

The story behind Felix

Felix is a social robot from the Happybots organization. An organization of people who are enthusiastic about the possibilities of technological (robot) applications. The first version of Felix has already been around for some time and has helped many users. However, just like us, Felix keeps developing. The firmware of the first edition had room for improvement, but the new functionalities couldn’t be implemented with the current hardware. By further developing the electronics and firmware, we made a more advanced version of Felix.

What makes Felix mature?

The previous version of Felix didn’t function without a power cable, which was not optimal. This was the first component that we looked to modify. With the addition of a battery and an internal charger, we made Felix wireless. With this wireless implementation, Felix is easier to use and can even be taken outdoors. To ensure that Felix stays connected everywhere, we replaced Wi-Fi with an LTE (4G) modem. We also improved Felix’s appearance. By increasing the memory available in Felix, more variations of eye animations can be added. And we of course prepared Felix for the future with an implementation suitable for development of future functionalities. Are you interested in what Felix will soon be able to do next? Well…that is still a surprise! ‍

As demand for Felix continues to grow, we also found a good alternative for the housing through our network. The injection molds for Felix’s housing are now being manufactured at higher volumes by one of our partners in Asia. This improves cost efficiency and ensures that every Felix has the same look.