Amazon Astro: Electronic Pet or Monitoring Robot?

Is the Amazon Astro useful? It is certainly a remarkable robot. We’re going to see what you can do with it here.

What is the Amazon Astro?

Robots, they are now indispensable. They also appear more and more in everyday life. A good example is the Amazon Astro. This robot, about half a meter high, is constantly driving around your house.

On the first round, the robot explores where it can reach and where it can’t. This prevents the robot from falling down the stairs, for example. Because with its two large wheels, it can only drive around on the ground floor. Furthermore, the robot is equipped with a screen, sensors and a handy platform on which you can put things.

For example, you can have small things brought to someone else. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the robot can’t open the fridge and take out a can of beer so the hopeless couch potatoes will have to get up on their own anyway.

Home robot and security robot

This robot is sold by Amazon as a home robot. The robot is especially useful for single-storey homes, as it cannot climb stairs. Because the robot is constantly moving around, it can keep an eye on the house and see if something is wrong. So it also has some features of a surveillance robot. The robot is also able to connect to the home automation system in your house. For example, the controversial Ring camera, also from Amazon, can project its image on the screen of the Amazon Astro.

Are you away from home a lot? Then this robot is very useful to see if everything is safe, because you can simply instruct via your smartphone to drive somewhere in your house and see what is going on.

Amazon Astro more than a driving Alexa?

Critics therefore refer to the Amazon Astro as a driving Alexa. Indeed, you can’t do much with it, except for, for example, transporting a can, taking a selfie, inspecting the house or playing music.

But it is a nice device. Although the usefulness is of course limited, and for the $1500 that the device has to yield, you expect a bit more than this funny gadget. Availability is currently limited to the 50 states of the US.

Step in the right direction to a full-fledged home robot

That said, it’s a step in the right direction. The successors of this home robot will probably be able to do much more and thus become more interesting for those looking for more than just a fun toy.