The humanoid robot developed by SoftBank Robotics and introduced in 2014 was Pepper.
Pepper was designed to communicate with people by using speech recognition, cameras, microphones, and emotion-related behavior analysis. SoftBank presented it as a social robot rather than a machine intended for heavy industrial work. Its height is about 1.2 metres, allowing it to interact comfortably with people while standing on a wheeled base.
Pepper was first marketed in Japan, where early sales targeted households and businesses. It was later used in shops, banks, schools, museums, and reception areas. Its ability to recognize some facial expressions and vocal cues led to frequent descriptions of it as an “emotion-reading” robot, although it does not understand human feelings in the way a person does.
Pepper is sometimes confused with Nao, another SoftBank robot. Nao is smaller and walks on two legs, while Pepper is taller and primarily moves by rolling on its base.