Amazon has a brand new plan for its house robotic Astro: to protect your life

Still, final 12 months’s pitch was that Astro might be a house assistant to make your life extra snug and entertaining—a type of cute, bumbling sidekick. This 12 months, Amazon has recast Astro as a tool with a way more severe mission, to offer one other set of eyes on the issues an individual most values: their pets, their house, their livelihoods. 

As with any surveillance know-how that you just invite into your life, utilizing Astro would require a component of belief. This time, nonetheless, you’ll be extending that belief to a robotic able to roaming about your own home. That may look like a small step, but it surely’s an enormous one for not solely how folks work together with and look at house robots but in addition for Amazon’s involvement in our personal lives. 

Nevertheless, Maya Cakmak, an assistant professor on the University of Washington and head of the Human-Centered Robotics Lab, says Astro’s compatibility with different facets of Amazon’s house surveillance ecosystem, specifically Ring and Alexa, may effectively set it up for fulfillment. “Astro can present these providers seamlessly,” says Cakmak.