Amazon introduced a home robot assistant

Amazon at the annual presentation of its products introduced the Astro home robot. The “screen on wheels,” as Bloomberg calls it , is based on Alexa technology, which allows you to control devices in the “smart home”.

The list of Astro features, as Amazon promises, will be long. He, for example, will be able to monitor pets while the owners are away from home, recognize faces and deliver items to a specific person, play music, show the weather and answer questions. It can also be used for video calls: it will keep the owner in the frame, following his movements.

The robot is able to move at a speed of a meter per second and is equipped with a periscope that expands the camera's field of view. On the screen of the robot in default mode, two circles imitating eyes are displayed.

As noted by The Verge, the development of Amazon, despite its ambitiousness, is only the first step towards creating a robot assistant. Astro, for example, cannot mop floors or climb stairs. He is also incapable of going outside the house.

Amazon has not given a start date for Astro sales. The robot will be available for $1,000 as part of the Day 1 Edition program: users request an "invitation" to be able to buy the device at an early stage of development, and the company approves the applications of some of them.