A kitten-shaped wearable camera that talks to ChatGPT

After high-profile wearable stumbles like the Humane AI Pin, tech companies are still trying to figure out what ambient computing should actually look like.

At Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, Dino Bekis, who heads the company's wearables division, showed off an unexpected experiment: the Looki L1, a lifelogging wearable camera shaped like a tiny cartoon cat.

The device runs on Qualcomm's recently launched W5 Gen 2 wearable platform, a chip originally destined for smartwatches that hardware makers repurposed into an everyday lifelogging pendant.

A purring 30g camera around your neck

Instead of trying to look sleek and futuristic, the Looki L1 leans entirely into playful toy design. It features an oval face, cat ears, and little legs, weighing just 30 grams.

You can wear it around your neck using an included cord or clip it to your clothes. The interaction design is just as whimsical: stroking its middle activates chirps and purr-like haptic vibrations.

To check the 12-hour battery life, you simply tap the cat's belly, and its legs glow green, yellow, or red depending on remaining power.

Sony sensors and cloud-powered storytelling

Underneath the cute exterior is a dedicated lifelogging rig. The side buttons activate a 12-megapixel Sony sensor equipped with image stabilization and auto HDR, capable of shooting 4K stills and 1080p video at 30 frames per second.

You can also talk to it directly to query ChatGPT without reaching into your pocket for your phone.

Footage syncs to a companion mobile app and gets beamed to the cloud. From there, Looki's software groups your day into story chapters, auto-cuts highlight reels, and can generate custom themed short films based on prompts around a specific mood, place, or person.

The Looki L1 is available now for $199, which includes three free months of its cloud membership, normally priced at $10 per month.

Why it matters

Looki L1 avoids the fatal flaw of many first-generation AI wearables: pretending to replace your smartphone.

Instead, it acts as a lightweight lifelogger with a friendly disguise. Turning a piece of ambient surveillance gear into a cuddly kitten is clever product psychology. It feels substantially less intimidating than a cold metal badge or smart glasses.

For everyday vloggers, parents, or creators who want hands-free memory capture and automated highlight editing, $199 is an accessible entry point to try out lifelogging without massive friction.

Still, the inherent tension of wearable cameras hasn't gone anywhere. Walking into public spaces with a chest-mounted camera will always raise privacy eyebrows, no matter how soft the purr is. And with a $10 monthly cloud subscription waiting after month three, Looki will need to prove its AI video edits deliver ongoing value before the novelty wears off.