Amazon astro - Too cute

 A few days ago, in Amazon’s launch event they introduced most of their highly rumored products, and one of them includes a home robot which we have been expecting for a few years now, and that home robot is called ‘Astro’. He got wheels, a normal webcam, a huge periscope camera, a pretty big screen for its size and finally a small cargo area at its back to carry things around. With a big advancement comes big price, this robot costs around $1500, but with an early bird price amazon reduces it to $1000. Let's see more about it and what else it does to comprehend the grand price.

ASTRO – THE CUTE COMPANION

Astro as I mentioned is a home robot, by day it is a cute little robot which roams around your house like a small pet, but when you are not around it turns itself to patrol mode, meaning it will turn itself to a security robot which will keep an eye on everything and send the camera feeds to your mobile phone directly.  At a first glance, it does not look like a home security device, it looks more like Disney Pixar’s “Wall-E” with a more advanced look. But Astro is clearly designed with security in mind. 

ASTRO’S USE CASES

Astro can autonomously roam around your house or navigate to specific rooms in your home, they stated that even in an electrified smart house with a lot of smart home devices, there are certain things which cannot be done due to the devices being stationary which will probably be solved by Astro.

Contrary to its size, it is not limited to patrolling 1 or 2 feet from the ground, but it has a long periscopic lens with 3 size adjustments which allows it to double its standard viewing size and checking on things that are higher up in your house.

 Astro is also letting you watch your home from the app. Thanks to its on-board processing, it can also recognize its environments, meaning that it can detect you and other members of your family to differentiate it from strangers.

Astro can also sync with other Amazon security systems that you may have in your home, which widens up its view acting as an all-in-one surveillance machine. If you have Amazon’s ring protect subscription services, it can automatically save the CCTV footages that Astro takes. Thanks to Astro’s on-board microphones and Alexa guard security, it will be able to detect smoke alarms and alert sounds, and even breaking of glass.

Astro’s intelligent AI processing is also very useful, it uses something called “Simultaneous Localization and Mapping” also called as SLAM technology, which helps it navigate around your house. It can not only detect stationary obstacles like tables and couches, it can also detect moving objects, humans and pilot around any foreign objects which weren’t on the floor a few moments ago. It is also intelligent enough to try not to fall down stair cases, which was a big caveat with other smart home robots.

Other than surveillance capabilities of this cutie, this can also be used as an in-house care companion which can look after kids and young ones, you can also give commands to it, say “Astro! Pls call my sister for dinner” and if it is programmed, it will roam around your house to find and ping her.

But this care companion feature is only available to Alexa together subscribers. Which also includes fall detection, 24 x 7 emergency services, amazon home routines and much more. This new subscription service is $20 a month and it is not only limited to Astro but it is also coming to other echo devices as well, but unfortunately, this service is currently only available in the US and it will take some time for Alexa together to come to other countries.

Amazon not only wants Astro to be a security guard, instead it can also jam down to music, play songs podcasts and also stream a video, it can also dance with you if you want it to. And as it has integrated Alexa, it can also do Alexa things, like setting reminders, controlling your smart home if you have one and also notify you if you have Alexa calls.

Along with these features, Astro also has a small storage area at its back, either you can put a cup holder cover, which is expected to come with Astro inside the box, or you can leave it open making it a big basket. This can be used to transport drinks, toys etc... from one place to another. 

EXPRESSIONS

It has a 10-inch screen as its face with 1280 x 800-pixel resolution which is just slightly above a 720p screen and it is not HD but the quality of the screen can only be tested hands-on. The eyes inside the screen can show various emotions and expressions, for example:

1. it can wink its eye when you look at it

2. close its eye while charging which imitates sleeping

3. and if you call Astro, its eye color will change from white to a bold cyan-blue gradient, showing that it is listening to you, just like the glowing ring in Amazon Echo devices.

Privacy Concerns 

But more cameras in your house means more privacy concerns, to overcome these issues amazon added a mic and camera kill switch which will allow you to disable Astro's Camera and mic feed temporarily, it also has an LED light on its top bezel which will also allow you to see if it is using its camera and mic or not. 

IMPRESSIONS AND CONCUSION

As my first impressions on looking at it, it’s a handy little helper designed to be there when needed and it is a glorified autonomous security rover with a very cute face. Although it takes quite some time to come to mass production, reviewer's unit have already been produced, and it will be distributed to invited users. Either way it still stands for what amazon said “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Astro is worth a thousand cameras”.  I can’t wait to see it roam around my house, once we get further reviews and further details about it, I will update my article. Anyway, thanks for reading, this is Raghunath Balaji from Tech passion, Signing off for now.