SwitchBot unveiled three new AI products at IFA 2025—a powerful smart home AI Hub, a colorful E Ink Art Frame, and plush animal-like companion robots Niko and Noa—blending automation, creativity and emotional interaction to expand its smart home ecosystem. (Source: Image by RR)

Niko and Noa Introduce AI Companionship with Emotional Responses

SwitchBot unveiled a trio of new AI-powered products at IFA 2025 that highlight the company’s push to expand beyond quirky smart gadgets and into deeper integrations of intelligence, creativity and companionship in the home. The lineup, according to a story in theverge.com, includes a fourth-generation AI Hub capable of advanced event recognition, an E Ink AI Art Frame designed to generate and display custom artwork, and two penguin-like companion robots named Niko and Noa. Together, these products reflect how SwitchBot is positioning itself at the intersection of functional smart home automation and emotionally engaging AI experiences.

The AI Hub marks a significant upgrade over its predecessors, with expanded Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities, a 6T AI chip, and up to 1TB of storage. More importantly, it incorporates both local and cloud-based intelligence to interpret real-world events, such as detecting a fall or recognizing pets and family members, and it can respond with relevant footage or actions. It supports more than 100 devices, manages eight 2K cameras, and bridges products into the Matter ecosystem. By adding vision-language models that understand context, the hub promises to move smart homes beyond basic routines into responsive, context-aware environments.

The AI Art Frame takes SwitchBot into the lifestyle space, blending home décor with digital creativity. Available in three sizes, the frame uses color E Ink technology to display uploaded photos or AI-generated images created through prompts in the SwitchBot app. Powered by a locally trained AI model, the frame can run on battery power for up to two years, giving users flexible placement options. By allowing families to swap between personal memories and AI-made artwork, the device merges personalization with aesthetic appeal, showing how AI can quietly blend into everyday spaces.

Adding a playful dimension, SwitchBot introduced Niko and Noa, two plush-bodied AI companion robots designed to mimic emotional interaction. With mobility powered by small wheels, expressive glowing eyes, and the ability to flap their arms, the bots are built to recognize family members, respond to gestures, and simulate emotions like happiness, sadness, or even jealousy. Though no pricing or release dates were shared, the company’s history of bringing experimental prototypes to market suggests these “AI pets” may soon arrive in homes. Together, the new lineup demonstrates SwitchBot’s ambition to move from utility-driven smart gadgets into a broader role as a provider of creative, adaptive and emotionally aware AI systems.

read more at theverge.com