Curious,
not credulous.
Companion robots invite attachment. Our job is to preserve the delight while making the technology, evidence, uncertainty, and ownership trade-offs legible.
Make the relationship understandable.
Companions.wiki is an independent field guide to embodied technologies designed for social presence, affection, comfort, play, care, or learning.
We describe what a robot can sense, how it acts, what services keep it alive, what it asks of a household, and where public documentation stops. We do not treat novelty, price, human likeness, or the word “AI” as a proxy for quality.
What belongs in the directory.
An entry should have a physical robotic body and a primary or meaningful use involving ongoing social, emotional, tactile, educational, or care-oriented interaction. Smart speakers, software-only characters, remote-controlled toys, and general-purpose appliances are normally excluded unless embodiment changes the relationship in a material way.
Shipping products, clearly labeled preorders, influential discontinued models, and research platforms with a companion-robot role.
Clinical, care, and child-focused products receive extra caution around evidence, consent, accessibility, and regulatory language.
Sources beside claims.
Material dossier fields have stable claim IDs and show their supporting sources, support type, confidence, model or regional context, and verification date. Official pages establish what a maker publishes; they do not independently prove real-world performance or benefit.
Direct documentation plus strong independent or regulatory confirmation for the central facts.
Core hardware, price, or policy facts are documented, while performance or outcome evidence remains incomplete.
The claim currently rests mainly on maker documentation and should be read as such.
Support labels are separate: Direct, Inferred, Independently tested, or Owner-reported. “Not disclosed” means we did not find a clear public answer. It never means a feature or data flow does not exist.
A layout change is not a fact check.
Every dossier separates its factual review date from its page-modified date. Prices, availability, subscriptions, support, and policies are intended for monthly or change-triggered review. Hardware receives annual review unless a model revision appears. High-risk care, child, safety, and regulatory claims require human review before publication.
Revision records are append-only in the public interface. They identify the fields changed and whether the edit refreshed product evidence or only improved the editorial system.
Inspect catalogue coverageFive dimensions, no overall winner.
Dossier signals run from 1 to 5 for conversation, movement, tactile interaction, behavioral independence, and offline resilience. The anchors are: 1 minimal or intentionally absent; 2 limited; 3 meaningful but bounded; 4 central and capable; 5 defining or unusually strong. They are editorial summaries, not lab measurements or quality scores.
The Finder asks five questions. Relationship and setting shape the match score; region, purchase budget, required-plan ceiling, and must-haves act as eligibility gates. Ownership headroom is reported as a separate cost signal, and evidence maturity stays separate from fit so thin documentation can never masquerade as a strong match. Affiliate commission, sponsorship, sales, and popularity do not affect the order.
Standards shape the questions.
We use established personal-care robot, service-robot, AI-risk, IoT-security, child-rights, and health-AI frameworks to identify questions worth asking. Listing a framework does not certify a product against it.
Specific, sourced, and visible.
Corrections, new-entry proposals, owner observations, and disclosed manufacturer responses receive durable reference IDs and enter a private moderation queue. Editors record an immutable status event; accepted or rejected resolutions may be published with a rationale while contributor contact details remain private.
Owner observations are dated and explicitly anecdotal. Other submission types require a public source. Small prose or layout edits never masquerade as fresh product verification.
Open the public correction recordNo affiliate ranking.
Companions.wiki does not accept payment for placement, does not use affiliate links, and does not award an unexplained “best robot” badge. Manufacturer access, samples, sponsorship, or other material relationships must be disclosed beside affected work if they are introduced later.
The guide should work for more people.
The site targets WCAG 2.2 AA: keyboard access, focus trapping and restoration, visible focus, minimum touch targets, semantic comparison views, reduced motion, responsive reflow, text contrast, and state labels that do not rely on color alone. Accessibility issues are correction-worthy editorial issues.