Sony Revives Aging Aibos With Foster Program to Save Robotic Dogs From Retirement Home

Sony has launched the “Aibo Fos­ter Par­ent” pro­gram to refur­bish and rehome their $2,900 robot­ic dogs. Own­ers whose ser­vice end­ed can now donate their Aibo. Sony will per­form need­ed repairs and place the robots with med­ical facil­i­ties, fos­ter homes, and oth­ers in need. The goal is to “make Aibo more sus­tain­able” and give the units a sec­ond chance to pro­vide sup­port through their emo­tion­al intelligence.

The Aibos in the pro­gram are the 2019 Sony ERS-1000 mod­els. While not ful­ly char­i­ta­ble, Sony charges a small fee to cov­er repair costs. Depend­ing on their con­di­tion, some robots may only donate replace­ment parts to extend oth­er Aibo’s functions.

As reviewed in 2019, Aibo can stand, greet own­ers, and mature over­time like real dogs. Own­ers use an app to cus­tomize com­mands. Equipped with sen­sors and respond­ing to voice and touch, Aibo rec­og­nizes peo­ple mak­ing it per­fect for emo­tion­al sup­port where pets are banned. The fos­ter pro­gram is a smart solu­tion, reusing capa­ble robots to aid oth­ers while pre­vent­ing e‑waste. Sony res­ur­rects deac­ti­vat­ed Aibos, giv­ing their intel­li­gence new life through new fos­ter families.