OKA (One Kind Artifact) has launched Mori, an AI-powered home robot designed to respond to its surroundings through movement, lighting and sound. The device, which resembles a contemporary table lamp, is available in a limited Founder Edition for $649, with standard preorders priced at $799.
Rather than automate household tasks or function as a voice assistant, Mori is designed to provide screen-free companionship and encourage users to slow down and reconnect with their surroundings.
“After a decade of building personalized content products and social platforms designed to capture people’s attention, I started asking a different question,” said Hua Wang, founder and CEO of OKA. “What if technology didn’t ask for more of our attention, but gave some of it back to people?”
Mori can turn toward someone entering a room, offer a welcome-home gesture, move along with music or remain still while someone reads. Its interactions rely on light, sound, movement, and touch rather than spoken commands or a display.
The robot’s underlying system, which OKA calls Attentive Intelligence, is designed to interpret its surroundings and determine when to respond. Mori can learn the layout of a room, notice unfamiliar objects or sounds, and adjust its behavior to suit the situation.
OKA also uses a framework called VIBE, short for Vitality, Interaction, Bonding, and Emotion, to shape Mori’s energy and expressions based on time and experience. The system combines small movements and eye expressions with sound to vary the robot’s responses.
The technology builds on research by OKA co-founder Weizhe Chen, whose co-authored work on attentive robotic information gathering received the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Best Student Paper Award in 2022. Chen holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington.
Nature-inspired experiences are another focus. Mori uses movement, lighting, and high-fidelity audio to recreate elements of environments such as forests, rainfall and campfires. Users can initiate these experiences with a touch or respond to an invitation from the robot.
OKA said Mori’s perception processing is designed to take place on-device. Its camera can also be physically concealed when the robot’s head retracts into its body.
Founded by Wang and Chen, OKA brings together expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence, industrial design and consumer products. The company plans to develop five artifacts, each focused on a different aspect of human experience that it believes can be diminished by increasingly digital lifestyles. Mori is the first.
The limited Founder Edition includes priority delivery, two years of hardware coverage, and two years of subscription service, which OKA values at $158. More information is available at https://onekindartifact.com.
About OKA
OKA (One Kind Artifact) is an experimental technology company with a unique ambition: to build only five artifacts. In a world of hyper-connected, fast-paced technology, people are increasingly disconnected from themselves and what makes them human. OKA explores how advanced tools, from AI to robotics, can reverse this trend. Through bold experimentation and thoughtful design, each artifact reimagines humanity’s relationship with itself, its surroundings, nature, others, and time.
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