The robot is far from a consumer item just yet; it is a laboratory prototype, about to be tested with patients at the ALS Center at the Emory University School of Medicine, said Dr. Jonathan Glass, the center’s director. The robot may fill an important need there. “I’ve had patients tell me if they drop their cellphone, they may spend several hours trying to lean down and pick it up,” Dr. Glass said. “And it fills a psychological need, too, not to have to ask for help.”

Andrew Y. Ng, an assistant professor in computer science at Stanford who is developing robot technology for people to use at home, said Professor Kemp’s use of the laser pointer was highly effective. “It is simple, elegant and clever,” he said, “one of those solutions that many of us wish we had thought of ourselves.”

El-E isn’t a biped  she rolls along on wheels. When a laser pointer illuminates a spot in the room, she detects the spot with her wide-angle camera, then trains her camera eyes on it to get the position of, say, the cellphone or book, Professor Kemp said. Then she lumbers off, her built-in laser range finder scanning across the surface for the target. Once she reaches it, a camera in her hand looks downward to get the measure of the object before she grabs it.

Another point-and-click household robot offers a two-way voice and video system that lets Mom and Dad visit with their children even when the parents are in a faraway hotel. This robot, ankle high and shaped like a disc, is connected to a home wireless network; its out-of-town owners can turn on a laptop computer and use the Internet to call the robot sitting in the living room. Then they can use the laptop’s mouse and keyboard to send the robot rolling around the room. On the computer screen, they see what the robot is seeing with its cameras, and they can talk with anyone near the robot’s sound system.

The robot, called ConnectR and not yet on the market, is being tested by its manufacturer, iRobot, said Colin Angle, chief executive. It is expected to cost about $500.

ConnectR’s camera system can show out-of-town parents the printed words in a book their children are holding at home, so they can read them a bedtime story from it. It “will allow people to visit virtually regardless of where they are in the world,” Mr. Angle said.