On more than one occasion I have commented that I love robots, but despite the fact that the Japanese in particular have presented more than one robot for home care, they have not had a massive success so far.
And with the new Astro robot recently presented by Amazon, it remains to be seen if they succeed.
Amazon has the advantage of being deeply embedded in millions of households that buy its products and use its Alexa apps, but a home robot is quite an important step starting with its price. It's almost $ 1,000 for a device that keeps you accompanied and little else
Amazon says it's more than Alexa on wheels, and it's true but only partly.
By being able to move around the house and connect to the homeowners' mobile phone, it can perform security and surveillance tasks, but having 3 wheels is limited to moving on smooth surfaces such as an apartment or a house.
Every day there are more and more older people who find it useful to have an accompanying and connecting device other than their loved ones, but the price is a major limitation.
You can see a video at https://youtu.be/sj1t3msy8dc
Taking into account that floor cleaning robots cost around 300 euros, it would seem reasonable that a robot of this type would cost around half what it costs, and under those conditions it would have a better chance of reaching a good level of sales
But I'm sure the Amazon people are smarter than me, and they will know what their sales strategy is. Maybe it has to do with capturing the data of everything that happens in a house. And I don't like that at all.
Time will tell us if it becomes a popular product or not.
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