Many of you might know Amazon as being an online retailer, but over the years, the company has diversified its offerings where they sell all sorts of things like e-readers, e-books, smart home gadgets, and more. It now looks like robotics could be Amazon’s next venture as they have since unveiled the Astro, an at-home robot.
While other companies might be focusing more on robots for industrial or military use, the Astro is a robot designed for the everyday consumer. It is a motorized robot with two wheels that helps it move around, and a display that can show a face to make it look more friendly and less intimidating.
This is essentially a culmination of most of Amazon’s tech efforts so far, such as AI, cloud services, smart home monitoring, and more. Some of the features of Astro include the ability to map out your home’s floor plan, deliver items to people in the home, play music, answer questions, and since it has a built-in display, you can even use it to make video calls.
There is also a built-in periscope camera which can be raised or lowered so it can check for things like whether you’ve turned the stove off. It’s a very interesting piece of gadgetry and it is priced at $999. It is classified as a Day 1 device which essentially means that you’ll kind of be a beta tester of sorts and you’ll be able to give Amazon feedback on its products. It is invite-only so if you’re interested, you can try and apply to get in on the program.