Sweekar AI Pet Emerges as Tamagotchi Successor With Physical Growth and Personality Development

Finally, I've Found a Worthy Successor to the Iconic 90s Tamagotchi

Katie is a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand. Back in 1996, when Tamagotchis became the must-have toy, I was eight years old -- the perfect target audience. I remember handing over my crisp British £10 note to the good people at Toys "R" Us, shaking with anticipation. It was the most money I'd ever spent in one go, but I knew it would be worth it to own one of the magenta virtual pets just like all of my classmates. Thirty years later at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, I finally found a worthy successor to my treasured pixelated companion. Sweekar is a Tamagotchi-inspired pocket pet, an AI companion that grows physically bigger as it matures. Sweekar begins life as an egg with ears. In a demo, it lays in my hand and I tap it gently three times on the head, making its yellow ears glow. The egg opens to reveal a screen displaying a cracking shell. A pair of sleepy eyes pop into view. On the Las Vegas show floor Sweekar was ready to go for my demo, but usually the incubation stage can take up to two days. The egg perches on its base until the shell cracks open, from which point little Sweekar will spend between five and seven days in baby stage. Next up is the teen stage (21-45 days), followed by Sweekar adulthood. With each life stage, Sweekar grows a little bigger. And just like the original Tamagotchi, each stage brings a series of new challenges for you as its owner. The early days mean high-frequency care with basic language learning. The teen years bring greater intelligence and a more distinct personality. Eventually you can progress to owning a pet that's autonomous, requiring less care, but which has more fun gameplay options. And Sweekar can also die if you neglect it. In all of these senses, it feels remarkably true to the spirit of the original Tamagotchi, but with AI technology that could ultimately provide a more rewarding experience in the long term. Hopefully it will inspire owners to keep it alive longer than the many little Tamagotchi chicks that perished due to lack of care. If you want to get your hands on a Sweekar to bring some 90s-inspired magic to a kid's childhood (or if you're just feeling nostalgic -- I won't judge), it will be available via Kickstarter later this year. Unfortunately you'll need more than a £10 note to secure one. Sweekar will be priced at a far more substantial $150.

Sweekar turns the Tamagotchi into a physical AI pocket pet that won't die on you

Takway, a startup that wants to be the "Nintendo of the AI robot era," has unveiled a Tamagotchi-like virtual pet at CES 2026 that's meant to go with you everywhere and develop a unique personality in the process. Sweekar is an AI companion built into a palm-sized toy, a cutesy egg-shaped device with ears and a screen for its face. As with a Tamagotchi, you'll have to feed and play with it to keep it happy and healthy, and its mood and facial expressions will reflect your care. But this virtual pet will remember your voice and the activities you've done together -- and once it's grown up, it will keep itself entertained, go off on its own virtual excursions (kind of like a Finch birb) and bring back tales of its adventures. Sweekar comes in pink, yellow and blue, but there will also be the option to switch up the shells and buy silly little outfits for it, because why not. The pocket pet has four life stages, becoming less needy as it grows. It starts out as a closed egg for its two-day incubation period, after which it will "break" its shell to reveal a face. From then on, you have to keep it alive with care tasks and attention in order to raise it through the baby and teen stages. Once it's an adult though, it will be able to care for itself autonomously. That means you no longer run the risk of killing it through neglect. Sweekar is unkillable from Level 51 on. (At least, in the virtual sense. Hardware can always break, and you'll have to keep it charged). There's no set price for it just yet, but Sweekar will likely fall within the $100-$150 range once it becomes available. The company says it will soon be launching a Kickstarter campaign.

Sorry Tamagotchi Fans, It's AI Time

When they said, "Nothing in this world is sacred," they meant Tamagotchis, too, or at least Tamagotchi rip-offs. While you might remember your virtual pets of yore with all the analog goodness that the '90s had to offer, this is the year of our lord 2026, and everything has to have AI. Yup, everything. While the Sweekar, which I saw at CES 2026, isn't actually a Tamagotchi, it pretty much is in everything but name, and, as you may have already guessed from the words above, it's centered on AI. What exactly is that AI doing? Ya know, just normal stuff that allows it to "feel your touch" and remember "your voice, your stories, and your quirks." It's time to go deeper with your virtual pets, people. Clicking a few buttons until they inevitably die from neglect isn't enough. On a hardware level, there's some cute stuff happening. The egg one kind of vibrates and shakes and grows, which is a fun tactile experience. As far as capabilities go, the Sweekar allegedly "needs your love, just like a real pet," which also means it has moods like happy, angry, sleepy, and something that Takway.Ai, which makes this little toy, is calling "sneaky smile," which is basically just mischievous? I think? I shudder to think what else it could mean. Just like a Tamagotchi, the Sweekar has growth cycles that include an "egg stage," a "baby stage," a "teen stage," and an "adult stage." At each stage, the pet is supposed to gain certain abilities and continually grow and understand more about you and your personality. More than anything, though, the Sweekar is centered around using AI for memory, so it can remember your name and your favorite color and that time you forgot its birthday. This Tamagotchi's therapy bill is going to be sizable. The people at Takway.Ai tell me that it's using a combination of Google's Gemini and ChatGPT to do that, and that everything you tell the Sweekar is private, though I obviously cannot verify the data practices of a company selling an AI Tamagotchi at CES. There's also the whole issue with AI toys having a mind of their own, which means you may want to think twice before you give this little guy to a kid. If an AI Tamagotchi is really high on your list of things that you absolutely must have then you can eventually throw money at Sweekar's Kickstarter in March. While there's no official price right now, the makers of this little virtual pet say it'll likely debut for between $150 and $200.