Prepared For an Alexa Robot to Follow Wherever you go?
Just in case you wanted a robot butler to follow you around the house, Amazon is reportedly working on an Alexa bot with wheels that can be summoned via voice commands.
The robot, reportedly codenamed Vesta, is purportedly being developed by Amazon Lab126—a research facility based in Sunnyvale, California. Vesta was initially reported on by Bloomberg last year. Supposedly, we were set to see Vesta hit the market earlier this year, but a new Bloomberg report published Friday says it’s not ready for mass production yet.
That’s usually a not-so-great sign for home robots—which had an awful 2018as many buzzworthy robots like Jibo and Kuri shuttered operations. At the very least, that signals Amazon hasn’t given up on a home robot making it to market.
Firstly, what exactly would an Alexa robot do? Jibo for instance, could not only answer questions—sort of like an Alexa—but was also programmed to interact in cute ways, like twerking on command or scanning a room for monsters. On the other hand, Amazon has purposefully kept Alexa rather neutral in the personality department, according to Bloomberg.
The reported inclusion of wheels, voice summoning, and computer vision would seem to indicate the Vesta can follow you around, acting as a sort of mobile Echo device for rooms where you don’t have an Echo nearby. It may not be elegant, but most people could do that themselves with a healthy amount of duct tape.