"Grandma, where are you going?" A voice from the latest Dinsow Mini robot is warning grandma not to leave home.
The second generation of the robot provides care for the elderly and Alzheimer's patients, with a new feature using artificial intelligence.
"There are at least 600,000 Alzheimer's patients in Thailand, and robots could serve these families as an assistant," said Chalermpon Punnotok, chief executive of CT Asia Robotics Co, Bangkok's pioneer robot maker.
The new generation of Dinsow Mini comes with facial recognition and voice recognition, training the robot to recognise family members and understand patients' sounds, even if their condition worsens and their sound changes. Its accuracy is over 80%, he said.
The robot needs 3-4 months to be able to observe patients' routines, then it can send notifications to care providers if the patient is doing something other than their routine activities or that may be dangerous.
The robot can also receive a phone call and remind a patient to take medicine or drink water.
What sets the machine apart is its brain exercises, with the robot encouraging patients to play games or teaching them to learn new things to recall their memories, said Mr Chalermpon.
The new version will be available from Healthy Max priced at 85,000 baht, reduced to 65,000 baht on Father's Day. The rental price is 2,900 baht per month, he said.
The first version has been on the market for two years in Thailand and Japan, used at Samitivej and Chulalongkorn hospitals here, and nursing homes in Japan.
Early next year, the company wants to introduce a new robot for the retail sector, said Mr Chalermpon.
The robot will be designed as a sales assistant that can recognise shoppers and recommend products suited to their preferences.