The Pleo Timeline: From an Inventor's Dream to a Collector's Icon

Pleo's story is a compact fable about ambition, craft, and the hard economics of magic. It begins with the man who had already taught a generation of toys to blink.

Before Pleo: Furby and a Restless Inventor

Pleo's lead inventor, Caleb Chung, was already famous in toy circles as a co-creator of the Furby, the owl-like electronic pet that sold tens of millions of units in the late 1990s. Chung didn't need another hit. By the accounts of the era, he pursued Pleo out of something closer to obsession — a desire to put a genuinely lifelike creature into people's hands. That drive is why Pleo was repeatedly delayed: he would ship when he was ready to feel real, not before.

2006: The Prototype Emerges

Pleo first turned heads as a prototype, shown at technology demonstrations in 2006. Early footage — later contrasted against the finished robot in our archived "Then and Now" post — revealed how far the design still had to travel. The eyes and skin of the shipping Pleo were dramatically more refined than those early units, the product of relentless iteration on the very details that made him lovable. Each public showing built anticipation and, inevitably, impatience.

2007: Launch

After several delays, Pleo went into production in the fall of 2007 at a price of $349. Demand outstripped supply through the holiday season, and Pleo made his public debut in front of exactly the right crowds — including a memorable first walk captured at a gathering of consumer-robot enthusiasts. A media blitz followed, from morning television to the technology press. The company's own announcement promising Pleo would be "in homes by the holidays" is preserved in our archive.

2008: A Beloved Product Meets a Hard Market

Pleo earned devoted fans, but he was expensive to build and expensive to buy, and the global economy turned sharply against premium toys in 2008. A product driven by craft rather than margin is wonderful for owners and perilous for a balance sheet. Despite strong affection and steady press — and a genuinely active online owner community keeping "Plogs," or Pleo blogs — the numbers grew difficult as the recession deepened.

2009: The Fall of Ugobe

In the spring of 2009, the company that created Pleo filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations. For a robot whose whole premise was longevity and companionship, the maker's own mortality was a bitter irony — and it left a passionate owner base suddenly without official support, updates, or spare parts. For many, that is the moment the Pleo community learned to fend for itself.

Rebirth: Innvo Labs and Pleo rb

The story didn't quite end there. Pleo's intellectual property was acquired by a new owner, Innvo Labs, which brought the dinosaur back as "Pleo rb" — "reborn" — around 2010 to 2011. The revived model refined the hardware and software and kept the flame alive for a few more years. In time, Innvo Labs too wound down its Pleo operations, and active production of the dinosaur came to a close for good.

Today: A Collector's Icon

With no company left to make him, Pleo passed into history — and into the hands of collectors, roboticists, and nostalgic former owners. He is now studied as an early, earnest attempt at emotional companion robotics and cherished as a design object. His fingerprints are visible in the wave of social robots that came after, most of which grappled with the same tension between wonder and cost that defined his life. Our collecting guide looks at where Pleo sits today, and the Pleo reference summarizes the models and milestones covered above.