CES 2026 hasn’t even officially kicked off yet, and there’s already an array of robot pets screaming for attention. While I couldn’t get my hands on all of them, some were too cute to resist, and others too practical to ignore. The list also includes Sweekar, a palm-sized robot that allegedly dies if neglected. As weird as it may sound, the robot physically grows as you care for it, and can even die if you stop caring for it. That’s made possible by the tech behind it. The brainchild of Takway, a Chinese startup, Sweekar is offered as a sealed egg that takes two days to hatch (incubate, rather).
Once it’s out of its shell, it’s up to you to keep it alive with care tasks and attention, raising it through the baby and teen stages. CNET, among the first to get hands-on with the device, notes, “Sweekar begins life as an egg with ears. As you tap it gently a few times on the head, it responds by making its yellow ears glow.”
Once incubated, the egg opens to reveal a screen displaying a cracking shell. It perches on its base until the shell breaks open, after which little Sweekar spends between five and seven days in the baby stage. Next comes the teen stage (21 to 45 days), followed by Sweekar’s adulthood.
I was already sold at this point, but Takway decided to impress further. The best part? It grows as you care for it, moving from baby to adult. With each stage, the robot becomes slightly bigger, both in size and in how it communicates. Engadget draws comparisons to Tamagotchi, the mid-’90s toy built on a similar concept, albeit without AI, something its pixelated predecessor never had.
The truly wild part is that the robot pet can actually die if it isn’t given enough petting or attention. What’s even crazier, however, is that it becomes immortal if it survives the early days without neglect. “Sweekar is unkillable from Level 51 on,” Engadget notes. In context, it’s still susceptible to hardware damage, but the embedded software and the virtual sense and understanding it develops over time, remain intact throughout its lifespan.
That brings me to some hardware details. The egg-shaped device features ears and a screen that serves as its face. Its mood and facial expressions reflect the care and attention it receives. Happy, Angry, Sneaky Smile, and Sleepy are among the common emotions it displays, with “new emotions and expressions to be unlocked soon,” the company states.
Sweekar pet robot also features AI Core Memory, allowing it to build a unique personality profile and recall your shared history. For now, the robot will be available in pink, yellow, and blue. Like most robots in this category, it will go through a crowdfunding phase before becoming widely available. There’s no official word on pricing yet, but rumours suggest it could fall in the $100–$150 range.
