Amazon Announced Astro Home Robot

(RTTNews) - Tech giants Amazon Inc (AMZN) have unveiled its home robot, named Astro, on Tuesday in the fall hardware event. The robot is calibrated to watch over homes, carry small things, play with children, play music, assist in video calls, and other things.

The company said that it will be making a limited number of robots in an invite-only system for now at only $999.99 for the Amazon Day 1 Editions Program. The robot comes with in-built Alexa support. Amazon looks to slowly improve the product with the help of feedback from users and after the process is complete, the final product will be available in the market for $1,499.99.

Charlie Tritschler, Amazon's vice president of product, said to CNBC that the idea for making the robot in a brainstorming session where all the participants agreed that the recent boom in the artificial intelligence industry will make it common for everyone to have a robot in a decade. "We've got a decade-plus with what we've done in fulfillment centers. But then all of the things we've done in devices and Amazon Prime Video and Alexa and home monitoring, and we had so many things we could pull together," Tritschler said while talking about the use of robots in the Amazon warehouses.

The company has made the robot small so that it doesn't get stuck. It features a 42-inch arm with a camera at the end of it. The face of the robot is a 10-inch display with a facial recognition camera. The camera can double down as both a security camera and a video camera. The display can be used to watch videos on different platforms. Essentially, Astro is an Amazon Echo Show 10 but n wheels.

Astro can be controlled remotely with a phone app, which increases its appeal. Tritschler also told CNBC that the company is partnering with Omron to make a special cuff that will measure blood pressure. This feature makes Astro a very useful gadget for people who leave their elderly family members or children for work, giving them an easy-to-control robot to monitor remotely.

To sign up for an invite to by Astro, individuals have to fill up a survey on the Amazon listing page. The survey lists products that are usually found in homes and Astro's compatibility with them.

While certain items like frameless windows or mirrors that end on the floor can be introduced and may "require special attention during setup", objects like ramps will be added later with updates and staircases or "Flooring transitions thicker than 1.375 inches or 3.5 centimeters" are listed under things Astro will not be able to operate in.