5 of the best robot pets

Karotz
£100, www.karotz.com
If Nabaztag broke your heart when his fortunes took a turn for the worse, his scion – Karotz – will stitch those shredded ventricles back together. The web-surfing, music-playing, house-sitting, tweet-reading Wi-Fi rabbot is back. Yes, rabbot… you wait till it catches on.

Cybird P1
£60, www.amazon.co.uk
A bird in the hand is worth nothing next to having the remote control for this ornithomatic bit of wizardry in your fingers. The 2.5m wingspan Cybird P1 flies for up to 10 minutes on a charge, though we’d be more a touch more concerned about landing our bionically feathered friend.

Genibo QD
£1300, www.amazon.co.uk
Even the most senseless pooch might wag an inquisitive tail in the direction of the Genibo QD’s price tag. But that’s because Rover hasn’t seen his robotic canine cousin doing a handstand, recognizing his owner or responding to over 100 voice commands. The touch-sensitive Terrier-nator also snaps pictures through his eye-cams and expresses cyber-emotions. His bark’s worse than his byte, though.

Pleo
£200, www.pleoworld.com
This binary brontesaurus (or whatever he is) is a bundle of tactile skin, sensors and calculated emotions. You can appease him by feeding him a rubber leaf or stroking his scales, or upset him in all sorts of creative ways. When his mood swings veer towards the hungry T-Rex setting, you might want to hack a new personality into him via the SD card slot under his belly. Unless you want to become history, too.

Chatimals
£20, www.firebox.com
Dead parrot? Never mind. Send Polly to the great perch in the sky and exchange her for one of these stuffed critters, which mimic whatever they hear in comically warped fashion.