Amazon recently announced their most intriguing and ambitious home product as of yet, the Amazon Astro household robot. The Astro is designed to be a home assistant that is capable of carrying out a wide variety of tasks.
At its core, the Amazon Astro is essentially a display on wheels. The Amazon Astro stands roughly two feet tall and navigates using its 12-inch diameter wheels. It’s “face” is a 10.1-inch touchscreen display that looks quite familiar to an Echo Show 10. Of course, packed with in the Amazon Astro is a variety of depth, obstacle, and navigation sensors. There are also two cameras, including a 5MP camera for video calling, and a 1080p periscope camera that is capable of extending 42-inches from the floor to help the Astro see and navigate around obstacles. The back of the Amazon Astro is a cargo area that can hold up to 2kg or 4.4lbs of items Inside, the Amazon Astro is powered by two Qualcomm QCS605 chips, one Qualcomm SDA660, and an Amazon AZ1 Neural Edge processor.
There are a variety of functions that Amazon claims the Astro can carry out. Upon setup, the Astro will quickly and intelligently map out your house, similar to how any smart vacuum would. Beyond that, Amazon says you can use Astro to deliver items to specific people, use it for home monitoring, play music, video call, set reminders, etc.
The examples Amazon mention include utilizing Astro to care for the elderly by checking up on them and delivering water and vitamins, using the periscope camera to check if the stove was turned off, having the Astro follow you when video calling to ensure your in frame, and act as a security system that can alarm when there is a disturbance. Nonetheless, it’s capabilities and skillset still seem quite limited at the moment.
In terms of battery life, the Amazon Astro can last around two hours on a charge, and fully charging from the robot takes around 45 minutes. Similar to a robot vacuum again, the Amazon Astro will return to its dock to charge itself automatically when needed, although you can command it to charge when desired.
The Amazon Astro will set you back $999.99 and is currently a Day 1 Edition product that is available exclusively by invitation.