It is the ultimate help around the house, from checking whether the children are doing their homework to seeing if you have left the oven on.

And at just £200, Spyke, a foot-high robot, could be the must-have gadget for adults this Christmas.

It can play music, make telephone calls over the internet and has a camera for a head. When it is running out of power it automatically limps back to its "dock" to recharge its batteries.

It is controlled via a wireless network. So as long as you have wireless broadband, you can access Spyke while you are at work and receive pictures about what is going on at home. The robot is manufactured by Meccano, the company that produced the popular engineering kits for boys. The brand is now owned by a Japanese manufacturer.

PC World, the electronics high street retailer, is to launch a "shop-within-a-shop" this year dedicated to selling domestic robots.

Bill Gates has likened the present state of robotic technology to the situation in the fledgling computer industry when he and his fellow entrepreneur Paul Allen launched Microsoft in the mid-1970s.