CES goes viral! This world's smallest AI education product turns 'learning' into 'desire'

At the CES 2026 venue, a delicate and adorable AI hardware device was constantly surrounded by participants eager to try it out—this was Lookee Oral Buddy, newly released by Hezhi Technology. In a short time, this high level of industry attention had quietly made its way onto many families’ holiday shopping lists. It addresses not only the thoughts of education developers but also the heartfelt expectations of parents:Can we make children naturally fall in love with speaking English, making learning occur naturally when they desire companionship?

Lookee debuts at the CES 2026 Agora booth

These expectations point to two long-standing unresolved pain points in education:'Mute English' ineffective learning and the common issue of smart devices being 'quickly shelved.'Lookee, along with Agora which provides the underlying RTC technology, is collaboratively providing a heartwarming solution.

Chinese children learning English generally face the challenge of 'mute English.' Research shows that when learning relies on both on-screen text and audio, the brain prioritizes processing visual information, thereby suppressing the development of auditory and oral expression abilities. This is a key reason for the phenomenon where many children 'can read but cannot speak.'

Therefore, instead of stacking more multimedia content onto screens, Box Intelligence Technology made a counter-intuitive key product decision:Completely remove the screen and bring interaction back to its purest form.Behind this lies a complete simulation of a real language communication environment.

This brings us to Lookee Oral Buddy: compact in size like an earphone case, weighing less than 50 grams, and supporting independent 4G connectivity. It was designed to be slipped into a pocket, worn around the neck, or carried along on the couch, in the car, or on a park bench—ready to spark a relaxed conversation whenever the child feels at ease. This might just be what many families are looking for today:A way of learning that doesn’t strain children’s eyesight, avoids parent-child friction, and seamlessly integrates into everyday life.

However,The primary prerequisite for achieving the concept of 'screen-free immersive dialogue' is having real-time voice interaction quality comparable to face-to-face conversations.Any stuttering, delay, or background noise can interrupt a child's train of thought and immersion. This is where Agora technology plays a crucial role:

Through the self-developed SD-RTN™ network and high-definition, weak-network-resistant, strong noise-reduction audio solutions, it ensures that children can maintain clear, smooth, and stable conversations with Lookee, whether in a mobile environment or under unstable network conditions.

Meanwhile, for hardware like Lookee, which is ultra-small and low-power, Agora achieves top-notch call experience through efficient audio processing and minimalist transmission optimization, helping the device balance battery life and performance, ensuring that “extreme lightweightingdoes not sacrificehigh-quality interaction”。

Educational hardware faces the risk of being 'idle,' mainly because it fails to become a daily companion that children both 'like and need.' Through systematic design, Box Intelligence Technology has built growth loops where emotional connection and effective learning reinforce each other.

Emotional companionship is key to building long-term stickiness. Behind Lookee's pair of 'empathetic' big eyes lies a self-developedreal-time perception system for children's emotions and comprehension levels (AURA)To achieve such nuanced emotional feedback, the system must complete the process from recognition to response within milliseconds. The ultra-low latency audio link provided by Agora ensures a smooth and coherent emotional interaction, making every response natural and timely, and establishing a genuine and credible emotional connection.

In terms of effective motivation, Lookee deeply integrates gamification mechanisms andInnovatively targets Cambridge English exam preparation (KET/PET/FCE/IELTS, etc.)Essential scenarios. By combining complementary smart cards and AI mock exams, it links daily fun conversations with authoritative, visual paths for ability improvement, making learning outcomes clearly visible. In high-demand scenarios like simulated oral exams, the stability and clarity of voice interactions are crucial. The smooth experience provided by Agora ensures the accuracy and reliability of AI scoring, making every step of progress traceable.

During free conversations, Lookee can naturally guide children to think about emotions in music, the meaning of friendship, and even the wonders of physics and chemistry,Breaking down subject barriers, making language a real tool for exploring the world.The 'shake' function brings unknown topics, creating real communication scenarios that stimulate children’s adaptability and organizational skills, making each conversation full of surprises and challenges, and allowing expression skills to be practiced naturally and imperceptibly.

This shows that Lookee's true breakthrough lies in its multimodal real-time perception and generation capabilities. To make this perception vivid and interactive, it relies on the real-time dialogue 'nerve center' built by Agora, which seamlessly collaborates with Lookee’s visual perception and large model capabilities, achieving a complete closed loop from environmental awareness, intention understanding, to natural feedback. It is this deep integration that gives hardware the potential to become the 'world interaction portal.'

Lookee's popularity lies in its precise 'small step' towards solving users' real pain points: delivering high-quality interaction during fragmented time, creating authentic conversational scenarios despite the lack of a language environment, and striking a balance between eye protection and interest stimulation. Children see it as a companion they can chat with, share with, and explore the unknown alongside, rather than a tool they need to face formally.This design, which transforms learning into a social behavior based on curiosity and emotion, is the key to winning children's affection and earning parents' trust.

It is precisely this solid 'small step' that collectively constitutes a 'giant leap' within the industry's perspective. It validates the feasibility of the formula: "Top-notch hardware experience = Insight into educational needs × Reliable technical implementation." At the same time, it offers users a new form of child-centered, life-integrated AI companionship.

Therefore, it is not just an AI study companion but also representsan active exploration of how 'RTE + AI' technology can create more effective interactions and wonderful possibilities for childhood.Perhaps this is the most noteworthy weight carried by this small product.