The company today announced Astro, its oft-rumored home robot. Although it’s pricey at an initial cost of $999.99, it has the potential of being the first real mainstream home assistant robot (as opposed to, say, a robot vacuum).
Something you can’t immediately see from the photos too is that it has a periscope camera that extends from the top of the robot. This allows the robot to see objects that are higher up — such as if want to check if you left the stove on. Okay. It doesn’t really do that much. Basically, it’s an Echo Show on wheels, with a few extra features. And with an extra dose of personality. But a video is worth a million words, or whatever the expression is: It’s still not quite what most of us envisioned of robots as kids; it’s not going to help you do the dishes or fold laundry — but it’s a start, I guess. Now we’ll just have to see whether people warm up the idea of having such an active robot in their home. It’s hard for me to imagine that many people will be comfortable with it — but then, I thought the same for voice assistants.
