Industrial & SMB robotPre-order
Tombot Jennie
The most emotionally convincing robot pet built — and you still can't buy one.
We haven't tested this machine hands-on, so this profile carries no rating — every fact below traces to the sources at the end, and the judgments are clearly ours. Full methodology on the Robot Tracker.
At a glance
- Status
- Pre-orderYou can pay today; delivery comes later
- Can you buy it?
- No
- Price
- $1,500 per press reporting from CES 2026 — Tombot publishes no price on its own site. Waitlist only; the first litter is sold out.
- Form factor
- Animatronic golden retriever puppy (lap-sized, non-walking)
- AI brain
- No LLM. Responds to voice, touch and movement — tail, sounds recorded from real dogs, and a detectable heartbeat.
- Maker
- Tombot (Santa Clarita, California, USA)
- Backing
- Tombot, Inc. — $7M Series A.
Jennie is a lap-sized robotic golden retriever puppy, built in collaboration with Jim Henson's Creature Shop, designed for people with dementia who can no longer care for a real animal. It responds to voice, touch and movement — the tail wags, the sounds are recorded from real dogs, and it has a heartbeat you can feel.
It deliberately does not walk. That's a design decision, not a limitation: a robot that roams the floor is a trip hazard for the elderly people it's built for. It is, essentially, a superb animatronic puppy that sits in your lap.
What's real
- • Built with Jim Henson's Creature Shop — the emotional realism is in a different league from anything else here.
- • Designed around a real, specific need: dementia patients who can no longer keep a live animal.
- • Deliberately non-ambulatory, which is the right call for its users, not a shortcoming.
- • Over 18,000 people have signed up wanting one — the demand signal is genuine even if the sales aren't.
Know before you watch (or buy)
- • 🚨 You cannot buy it. The first litter is sold out and there is a waitlist; as of July 2026 we found no evidence any paying customer has received a unit, and the ship date has been slipping since a $7M Series A. Anyone paying now is funding a promise.
- • The '18,000+ preorders' figure (Tombot's own site says 19,000 elsewhere) is WAITLIST SIGNUPS, not sales. It is not evidence that anything has shipped.
- • Tombot is 'pursuing FDA recognition as a medical device' — it is NOT FDA-cleared today. Any therapeutic claim about reduced agitation or medication is an aspiration under review, not an approved indication. Don't confuse this with PARO's (also overstated) status.
- • $1,500 is triple the price of anything else in this category, for a device that doesn't move around — and that price comes from press reporting, not from Tombot, who publish no price at all.
- • No published repair, battery or warranty terms.
The evidence
18,000+ waitlist signups (company-stated); $7M Series A raised. No verified deliveries to paying customers as of July 2026.
Sources: WTOP · Tombot · MassRobotics
Bottom line
The robot pet we'd most like to be proven right about, and the one we can least recommend acting on. The design thinking is the best in the category and the target user is real. But it has been 'shipping later this year' for years, nothing has demonstrably reached a paying customer, and the FDA status people attribute to it isn't there yet. Join the waitlist if you like. Don't plan around it.
FAQ
Can you buy a Tombot Jennie?
No. The first litter is sold out and you can only join a waitlist. Tombot says shipments are expected later in 2026, but that date has moved repeatedly since their Series A, and we found no evidence that any paying customer has actually received one as of July 2026.
Is Tombot Jennie FDA-approved?
No. Tombot says it is PURSUING FDA recognition as a medical device — that is an ambition, not a status. Its therapeutic claims are unvalidated by the FDA today. (The same confusion surrounds PARO, whose FDA registration is also widely misreported as a clearance.)