Online store, Amazon, has revealed its long-rumoured home robot called Astro on Tuesday.
Amazon said that Astro will be on sale later this year at $999 but the specific launch date is yet to be disclosed. It is worth noting that Amazon has made similar promises about future products that were severely delayed in the past.
Astro won’t be sold to everyone at first, Instead, Amazon will ask people to sign up and then invite them to order the robot.
Astro is about the size of a small dog. It roams around your house on three wheels, including two big ones that prevent it from getting stuck and a smaller one for rotating. It has a camera that rises up on a 42-inch arm that can keep an eye on your home as Astro patrols while you’re away. It can follow you around and play music or display TV shows on its 10-inch touchscreen. It can also recognize faces if you want it to.
Astro brings together a lot of what Amazon already offers in other products. It is like a combo of lots of Amazon’s other gadgets placed on wheels. The cameras can be used for home security or for video chat, sort of combining Amazon’s Ring cameras with its Echo Show smart screens. The cameras are also used to create a map of your house when you set Astro up for the first time. You can talk to Astro much like you’d talk to an Echo or Alexa you can change the name to Alexa if you want to get sports scores or the weather. And you can play movies or TV shows like you would on an Amazon tablet or Fire TV.
