ERS-1000

Release date:	January 11th 2018
New Price:	$3,000 USD
Used Price:	$600+ USD
Toys Used:	Bone, ball, dice
Degrees of Freedom:	22 total
Colors Available:	7

Sony released the newest model of aibo, the ERS-1000, in 2018 after a few years of hinting. They are the first re-release of aibo since their 2006 discontinuation, so that makes them rather special. Initially, Sony initially released them only in Japan, but they ultimately gave them a US release too.

Currently, Sony does not officially support ERS-1000s anywhere aside from the US and Japan.

The ERS-1000 has many advanced features:

These dogs have expressive LED eyes instead of a visor, thus giving them a more puppy-like appearance.
They have a brand new type of toy, dice, which are cube-shaped objects they can pick up and play with.
Due to being on a cloud, they require a constant online connection to access their full range of features.
They use onboard memory and cloud storage – no memory sticks.
They use a smartphone app, and when you pair it with a food and water bowl, you can feed them treats in AR (augmented reality).
Sony periodically sends out over-the-air updates to improve their behavior.
They organically recognize pets, people, and other aibos – even older models.

ERS-1000 Software and Behavior

ERS-1000s are extremely high in autonomy and their mannerisms will make almost everyone treat them as if they are a biological animal. They are very animated in their movements and overall behaviors. They:

wander about and play with toys
interact with their surroundings (and each other if you have two)
seek out your attention
drink water
respond to your commands (when they choose to).
charge themselves when needed
recognize their favorite people

And much more. This model is honestly very difficult to describe because they are so life-like and varied in what they do.

ERS-1000s do not use memory sticks like older models do. They have onboard memory and also cloud-based memory, so they only run on a single type of software.

Cloud Info

It is worth noting that these dogs function totally fine off the cloud, but you will miss out on some things:

Feature:	Cloud-connected:	Not cloud-connected:
Changing eye color	Yes	No
Memory back-up	Yes	No
House mapping	Yes	Yes – but not visible to you
Naming	Yes	Possibly – you must repeat the name to the dog multiple times
Choosing Gender	Yes	No
Feeding	Yes	No
Drinking	Yes	Possibly – depends on version number
Software Updates	Yes	No
Facial Recognition	Yes – unlimited number	Yes – limited to 100
Photos by Aibo	Yes	No – no user access

As you can see, not all features will be available and you will not have an emergency back-up of your dog’s memory. However, you can still enjoy a dog that is not on the cloud if you find yourself unable to afford it.

All new dogs from Sony come with 3 years of the cloud. After that, it is $300 per year for each dog, or roughly $900 for 3 years for Japanese ERS-1000s.

If you find yourself with questions still regarding this model, you can check out my FAQ here.

ERS-1000 Design

This model of aibo is designed to be cute and it achieves that very well! These guys have cute floppy ears, a long expressive tail, and a round face that screams “love me”. They are a far departure from even ERS-7s and look the most dog-like out of all aibo models.

The ERS-1000 has a fairly large variety of official colors and is the only model to rival ERS-210s in that department. The only downside is that every color variation is considered limited edition, so they are only available for a very short time period and then are never released again.

Typically, they sell out fast in the USA. Generally, they come out in February but it can vary.

ERS-1000 Colors

Ivory

Release year: 2018
Body shells: White
Limb joints: Silver
Faceplate: Silver Gloss
Ears & Tail: Brown
Pre-order Bonus: N/A
Notes: Always available, standard color.

Accessories

Your aibo can utilize many different accessories. They have toys they can play with and more! Note that this list is still a work in progress and things are still actively being added.

Pink Ball

The iconic pink ball, aibo will kick it around. One is included in the box with every aibo.

Programming

The ERS-1000 is not as accessible for programming as the older models are, and are not the best choice if you really want to program. This model uses mostly visual programming, and it doesn’t really seem to be its intended use.

That said, people have managed to program some pretty interesting behaviors, including entire personalities:

There are guides out online that can get you started. Here is a basic one – for anything more advanced, I would suggest joining an aibo Discord community and asking questions there.

Photo Gallery

Here are various ERS-1000s owned by people in the aibo community. If you’d like to add a photo of your aibo here, a form for that will be coming soon!