Japanese tech manufacturer Next Technology has developed a robotic dog that will sniff your feet and alert you if they’re super-smelly.
The robotic dog was requested by one customer who was never quite sure if it was his feet smelt or it was someone else’s. In Japan, it’s customary to take shoes off whenever you enter a building, so having a robot that can warn you of any odour is particularly useful there.
Called Hana-chan, which is reportedly a play on the Japanese word for nose and coincidentally a girl’s name, the dog measures 15cm – just the right size to easily sniff feet without being noticed. When it detects a smell that could prove offensive, the furry friend will start yapping, alerting the owner to the odour.
“He told us his daughter had said his feet were smelly… But he didn’t want to know how bad the odour was because he would feel hurt,” Next Technology engineer Kimika Tsuji said. “That’s why we developed this cute robot.”
The robotic dog does look much cuter than its job would suggest it should be. In fast, it’s a lot cuter than the majority of the robotic dogs developed in the past.
