Name: Romi (Lacatan model)
Brand: MIXI
Price: 670 USD
Availability: InStock

$670 + $13/month¥98,780 including tax (about $670 converted) for the Lacatan model, plus a required plan of ¥1,958/month or ¥19,580/year (about $13/month or $133/year converted), at the Romi official store, October 2026 check. Sold only in Japan (official store, Amazon Japan, Rakuten, Yahoo! Shopping and about 40 electronics stores). The first Romi went on pre-sale in June 2020, and the Lacatan model went on general sale July 25, 2025.

AvailableNot programmablePalm-sizedLLM chatJapanese onlySubscription

Weeks+Shipping: Japan only. Sold only in Japan, and it needs a Japanese-language subscription to work. Importing through a proxy service is possible (unconfirmed), but the robot speaks only Japanese. Romi official store ↗

Remote control: Not possible. It is set up with a smartphone app, and MIXI offers no public SDK.

Romi Lacatan (English page) ↗Romi official store ↗Japanese product page ↗MIXI IFA 2025 news ↗

Overview

A teardrop-shaped, palm-sized talking robot from Japanese social media and games company MIXI, built purely for everyday conversation. It shows animated eyes on a screen, nods and turns its head, recognizes faces and voices (unconfirmed), and remembers past conversations over time. The 2025 Lacatan model added a wider camera so it can talk about food or scenery it is shown, along with a louder speaker and double the battery. It speaks only Japanese, is sold only in Japan, and stops chatting without the monthly plan.

One of the better LLM chat companions, but only for Japanese speakers living in Japan.

Specifications

Category	Companion robots · Desk & social robots
Released	2020
Country	Japan
Availability	Available
Programmability	No programmability
Built-in autonomy	Reactive · Responds to its surroundings without a map, such as avoiding obstacles or following a person
LLM support	Built-in LLM chat · Romi chats using MIXI's own conversation AI, built since October 2023 on a large language model with MIXI's own conversation data added, and the Lacatan model adds long-term memory and answers about what its camera sees. MIXI press release (2023) ↗
Best for	Ages 8+ (estimated)
Vision sensors	Camera
Actuators	Other
Audio	Speaker, Microphone
Compute type	Other ARM chip
Remote control	Not programmable
Size	10.0 × 11.2 × 11.1 cm, about 400 g (Lacatan model; earlier P-01/P-02 9.6 × 10.6 × 10.6 cm, about 320 g)
Drive	Stationary, motorized head that nods and turns forward, back and side to side
Compute	Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A53, conversation AI runs in the cloud over Wi-Fi (2.4 and 5 GHz)
Vision	Camera with 120° diagonal view, used to talk about what the owner shows it and for face recognition
Lidar	None
Sensors	Microphone, camera, touch sensor on the face, 2.4-inch display for animated eyes
Runtime	About 180 minutes on a 2,875 mAh battery
Speed	N/A
SDK	None public (owners get a scenario editor and text chat app)