InteractionLabs shows how Ongo turns a $299 lamp into a desk robot

Why it matters

InteractionLabs is treating physical form as a distribution strategy: a robot may enter the home faster if it replaces an accepted object instead of demanding new space and behavior.

Karim Rkha Chaham (@Karim_RC) posted a new demonstration on September 21st of Ongo, InteractionLabs' attempt to put a conversational robot on people's desks by giving it a job and shape they already understand: a working lamp.

https://x.com/Karim_RC/status/2102062043323052319

"Every home already has a lamp," Rkha Chaham wrote in the four-post thread. The line captures the product strategy. InteractionLabs is avoiding the cost, mechanical complexity and unfamiliarity of a humanoid by building around an object that already has permission to sit in bedrooms, offices and living spaces.

Rkha Chaham founded InteractionLabs with Julien Ajdenbaum (@julienajdenbaum) in 2025. Rkha Chaham serves as CEO and has a background in mathematics, AI and product development. Ajdenbaum, InteractionLabs' CTO, studied applied mathematics, computer vision and optimization at Telecom Paris and ENS Paris-Saclay. Founders, Inc., which lists InteractionLabs in its portfolio, says Ajdenbaum has been building social robots since he was 10 years old.

A robot shaped for the room

Ongo is an articulated desk lamp equipped with vision, voice and memory. InteractionLabs says it can observe its surroundings, converse with its owner, recognize patterns and adjust its behavior over time. It is also supposed to perform the ordinary work of a lamp, including changing its light during periods of concentration.

Those features remain company claims. InteractionLabs has not published detailed performance measurements for Ongo's vision, memory or contextual-awareness systems. The current product page instead concentrates on movement and character, presenting the lamp as an ambient companion that communicates through posture, light and speech.

That emphasis explains why InteractionLabs recruited Alec Sokolow, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of "Toy Story," as creative director. InteractionLabs says Sokolow led Ongo's character-development process, an unusual product role for a robotics team and a direct acknowledgment that the lamp's movements are part of the interface.

Ongo's current price is $299. InteractionLabs is taking fully refundable $99 deposits that apply to the final purchase price. The preorder structure means Ongo remains an early hardware product rather than something buyers can expect to pick up immediately from a retailer.

The founders arrived at the lamp after beginning with a different object. Entrepreneurs First said Rkha Chaham and Ajdenbaum initially built a screen-free interactive storybox for children, prototyped early units at Station F and then shifted direction after speaking with parents. They later worked on Ongo in San Francisco, moving from a device designed around children's stories to a character intended to remain present throughout an adult's day.

The privacy glasses are part of the pitch

A camera-equipped object pointed into a home creates an obvious adoption problem. InteractionLabs says Ongo processes vision on the device rather than sending images elsewhere. The founders also gave it magnetic opaque sunglasses that physically cover the camera, turning a privacy control into part of the character design.

The sunglasses make the state of the camera legible from across a room. That matters for a product whose value depends on being left powered on and within conversational range. Conventional software privacy controls disappear inside menus; Ongo's founders are using the robot's body to communicate when it can see.

Voice remains central to the experience. InteractionLabs has worked with audio-model developer Gradium on Ongo's speech, with the companies describing low-latency transcription and text-to-speech as necessary for making conversation feel natural. A companion that pauses like a customer-service bot would quickly become another gadget users switch off.

Ongo's larger bet is that domestic robots will earn distribution through familiarity before they earn it through physical capability. The lamp does not need to walk across a room or fold laundry to establish a permanent position beside its owner. It needs to illuminate a desk, respond without becoming irritating and make its sensors understandable enough that people will leave it there.

That is a narrower technical target than a general-purpose home robot, but it creates a demanding consumer test. Ongo must justify its presence after the character effect wears off. The $299 price, camera and persistent voice interface all raise the bar. InteractionLabs is betting that a useful lamp with a carefully designed personality can clear it.