Robotics start-up announces holiday deal with Brookstone

Romotive Inc., the company behind the iPhone-powered Romo personal robot, has inked a deal to exclusively sell their robots at Brookstone stores through the end of 2013.

This is the first major distribution deal for Romotive, which was founded back in 2011 and initially gained attention through a pair of highly successful Kickstarter campaigns. The company has also attracted big investment dollars, including $5 million in Series A financing led by Sequoia Capital.

Romo, like the recently released Anki Drive racing set, uses Apple-built devices as its brains. The programmable “robot companion” is controlled over Wi-Fi and can react to things around it, follow certain objects and paths, track faces and stream two-way video and audio.

Romo retails for $149 and plays well with all iPhones released since the iPhone 4 as well as 4th generation and newer models of the iPod touch.

See below for a video of Romo in action:

[ image courtesy of Romotive ]