Recently, Amazon held a fall event. At the conference, the tech giant took wraps off many new products, like an Alexa-powered home robot, the new Echo Show, a replacement kid-friendly interactive device, a replacement smart thermostat, a replacement fitness tracker, etc. Though all products deserve our attention and in-detail introduction, we’ll focus more on the Amazon Astro.
AMAZON ASTRO
Simply put, Amazon puts its Alexa assistant on wheels. The Astro may be a new robot, which uses Alexa to speak with people. As for displaying emotions, there’s an outsized display. It also comes with a camera, which works through new computer vision powered feature called visual ID to acknowledge people. Interestingly, and what’s more important, the date will “work with date” on the robot and won’t sent information to clouds.
As for software itself, the robot runs Fire OS. The latter is Amazon’s variant of Android without Google Mobile Services. While it sounds good, some developers think it’s no ready for production and there are myriads of bugs and flaws. one among the developers worked on the Astro even described it as “terrible.”
IT’S READY FOR production
The Amazon Astro weighs 10kg and it stands at two feet high. thanks to the system and hardware it comes with, the robot can navigate autonomously round the house. Through sensors and advanced software, it’ll detect dynamic changes within the home. Plus, the robot has active and passive braking. So when a pet or a child suddenly appears on the road, it’ll stop.
There are up to 5 various motors. Two out of 5 motors power the wheels on the Amazon Astro; one lowers and raises the periscope camera; remaining two allow the robot to tilt and twist its face.
The robot also can follow you within the house playing music or movies on its screen at your will. As we are handling an Alexa-enabled robot, you’ll use all goodies coming our way from this assistant. Say, you’ll take call from a lover or loved one and speak to them while the speaker follows you around. As you guess, users also can control smart home appliances through it.
The Amazon Astro robot comes at $1499.99 and can be sold only within the US.
AMAZON ECHO 15
Well, the Astro may be a revolutionary product (for Amazon, of course). But it also came in with a couple of other products which will be called ordinary gadgets. First, we should always take a glance at the Echo Show 15, which sports a 15.6-inch Full HD resolution display. you’ll mount it to the wall. The display features a front-facing camera within the upper left corner. you’ll make your own to-do lists, take notes, etc. Of course, being an Amazon product, you’ll use it to consume Prime Video or the other supported streaming service. Inside, it carries a replacement AZ2 quad-core chip, which may refresh the Visual ID information automatically.
The Echo Show 15 costs $249.
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Another interesting product is that the Amazon Echo Glow. it’s a kid-friendly interactive device, which may make video calls and also features a projector. The latter are often used when playing games, drawing, or learning. it’s also useful when reading books with Amazon’s Kids+ subscription. When buying the Amazon Echo Glow, you’ll get one-year subscription automatically. Once the plan kicks in, it’ll cost only $3 per month.
