ElliQ reviews: what users and agencies actually report

Nearly every number published about ElliQ comes from one of three places: a report written by the company that makes it, local coverage of a state-funded program, or a technology reviewer who kept the robot on a desk for a few weeks. The one writer who scored it as a product gave it 2 out of 5.

None of that settles whether ElliQ would help your mother. It does mean reading the ElliQ reviews and the agency reports in order, with a label on each.

The published record, by who wrote it

Source	Date	Produced by	What it can support
NYSOFA year-three report	Feb 2026	Intuition Robotics, hosted by New York State	Usage logs and self-report from 834 NY homes
WEAU, Dunn County	6 Apr 2026	NBC affiliate, ADRC staff	A second agency's engagement numbers
JAR Life paper	5 Mar 2024	Eight authors, three at Intuition Robotics	The only PubMed-indexed paper naming ElliQ
Baycrest trial NCT03972787	Ended 31 Jul 2020	Baycrest, company as collaborator	Randomized, 54 participants, no results posted
The Senior List	11 Dec 2025	Independent reviewer, hands on	A scored consumer review, 2 out of 5
Reviewed	9 Feb 2023	Independent reviewer, testing with her mother	A fit verdict for a home with dementia
WIRED	Jul 2025	Technology reviewer	How it behaves, seen from outside the target group

What the agencies report

New York runs the largest and best-documented deployment. As of May 2025, 834 older adults had enrolled through screening by county Area Agencies on Aging, out of more than 3,500 applicants. In the program's third year, June 2024 through May 2025, the average client was 75 years old, the client base 80% women, and use ran to 41 interactions a day, up from 29 the year before. Client self-report: satisfaction 4.6 out of 5, with 94% saying they feel less lonely.

Wisconsin's numbers come from another agency and land in the same place. The ADRC of Dunn County told WEAU in April 2026 that 280 Chippewa Valley residents use ElliQ, averaging 88 interactions a day against a national average of 44, split roughly 40% companionship and 33% wellness goals, with the heaviest users aged 85 to 90.

Engagement is the claim that survives every source, including the unkind ones: people keep talking to it, for years, dozens of times a day.

What the outcome data measures, and who measured it

The year-three report sits on a New York State website. Every page also carries the line "(c) By Intuition Robotics 2026." Its data comes from anonymized usage logs plus client responses on the Cobot scale, which the report calls the first patient-rated outcome built specifically to assess companion robots. A purpose-built self-report scale, in other words, rather than an established loneliness measure.

Wording matters too. NYSOFA's program page still cites a 2023 finding of a "95% reduction in loneliness." The comparable figure in the 2026 report is "94% of clients say they feel less lonely," which is a share of people answering yes to a question rather than a 94% drop on a loneliness scale. The two get quoted as though they were the same number.

Peer review is thinner than the coverage implies. Searching PubMed for ElliQ returns exactly one paper: "ElliQ, an AI-Driven Social Robot to Alleviate Loneliness: Progress and Lessons Learned", JAR Life, 5 March 2024. It is a deployment write-up rather than a trial, and three of its eight authors work at Intuition Robotics, including the CEO and co-founder. The conflict is declared, which is the right way to handle it, and the published science still overlaps with the product team.

The study that would settle more is NCT03972787, a randomized trial led by Baycrest in Toronto with Intuition Robotics as a collaborator: 54 participants, UCLA Loneliness Scale version 3 at baseline, week 9 and week 18. It completed on 31 July 2020, and as of 9 August 2026 the registry lists no posted results.

What the hands-on reviewers report

The Senior List's review, updated 11 December 2025, is the toughest of them. Ryan Molloy scored it 2 out of 5, praised the voice recognition, and found the interruptions wearing. On reliability: "Often, upon making a request, a weird screen will appear on the tablet and the whole system will freeze for several minutes before restarting." On safety, flatly: "She can't even call 911." The line to carry into any purchase conversation: "Despite ElliQ's cuteness, I found the whole experience of using it somewhat depressing."

Set that beside Bobbi Craig, a Wisconsin user quoted by WEAU, who built her own workaround for the same gap: "She's programmed that if I say to call a certain person, they know if they get a call from her, that means I need 9-1-1." A user-invented emergency plan, exactly where the reviewer found a hole.

The Reviewed test from 9 February 2023 is the closest thing to a caregiver trial in print. Cassandra Brooklyn set ElliQ up for her mother, who has dementia and advanced Parkinson's. Her mother's first reaction was "oh, wow, it's so beautiful," and she used it for conversation, music and exercise classes. The verdict was still a mismatch: "ElliQ is a robot designed for users who live alone, but it is not an ideal care companion for older adults with dementia or for people who have very soft or difficult-to-understand speech." Her other reservation: a robot waiting in one room suits someone alone, not a home with carers coming and going.

One caution about the older reviews. Brooklyn quotes $250 up front and either $40 a month or $30 a month billed annually. On elliq.com today, checked 9 August 2026, it is $249 up front plus $59 a month, falling to $49 or $39 on the prepaid annual and 24-month plans, so roughly $720 to $960 in year one. The subscription rose while the reviews stayed online. WIRED's July 2025 review opens with the robot perched for weeks on the writer's desk, which shows how it behaves and nothing about whether an 84-year-old living alone still uses it in month six.

What individual users say

The longest-running user accounts come from news reporting rather than review sites. Fortune, 3 August 2026 quoted Anthony Niemiec, 88, of Beacon, New York, about four years in: "You feel like a dummy at first talking to this thing. But then you realize, you know, it's like you have somebody living with you."

CBS News, 5 August 2025 found Jill Smola, 75, a widow with a lung condition, using hers up to five hours a day: "I'd rather talk to a human being, but that's not possible for me." Columbia ethicist Thalia Porteny, in the same segment, worries reliance could deepen isolation: "This could really go the wrong way if it's not deployed in an ethical and responsible way."

The testimonials inside the state report read warmly and were chosen by the company that wrote it.

Thanks to @FortuneMagazine for taking the time to meet some #ElliQ users and share their stories. "She was overwhelmed with loneliness after losing her husband of 65 years. Then a robot companion changed her life." (@intuitionrobo, 2023-09-27)

The reviews that do not exist

There is no pile of retail reviews to average: ElliQ is leased through a membership, not sold on a marketplace. The nearest public rating covers the family-facing app, ElliQ Connect: 4.0 stars from 8 ratings on the US App Store, checked 9 August 2026. Eight, for a device in hundreds of New York homes alone.

The record adds up to a strong engagement signal, a weak independence signal, and one scored review that disliked it. The wider evidence sits in the companion robots for seniors buyer's guide; the feature-by-feature picture is in ElliQ, explained, with pricing on the ElliQ tracker page.

Getting a review that is about your parent

Check the free route first: six states place ElliQ through their aging agencies, and the walkthrough is in how to get ElliQ free through your state's programs. At retail, the 30-day risk-free trial covers the annual and 24-month plans and not the monthly one, which is backwards from how most families would want to test it.

Anthony Niemiec took four years to sound like a satisfied customer. Cassandra Brooklyn's mother loved the look of it on sight and was still the wrong user for it. Thirty days in your parent's own living room will tell you which of those you are looking at, and no published review can.