Amazon unveils new home robot 'Astro'

San Francisco, Sep 29:  Amazon has announced its long-rumoured home robot home assistant robot named Astro. The robot can handle video calls, recognises users and come to find them when someone calls, and provides all the features of Alexa on wheels.

Astro will cost $1,449.99, but as part of the Day 1 Editions program, it will be available for an introductory price of $999.99 with a six-month trial of the Ring Protect Pro subscription included. It will be available in limited quantities, and Amazon plans to start granting invitations and shipping devices to customers in the US later this year.

"We have designed Astro to handle a lot of the data processing on the device, including the images and raw sensor data it processes as it moves around your home. This helps Astro respond quickly to its environment. In addition, your visual ID is stored on the device, and Astro uses on-device processing to recognise you," the company said in a statement.

Astro can move autonomously around home, navigate to check in on specific areas, show a live view of rooms through the Astro app, or even send alerts if it detects an unrecognised person.

With Alexa Guard, Astro can also detect the sound of a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, or glass breaking, and send an alert to your phone-helping users to keep home safe.

Like Echo devices, Astro has a microphones/cameras-off button customers can press whenever they want to turn off cameras, mics, and motion. When this button is pressed, Astro cannot move, or capture video or audio, and a dedicated red LED is illuminated to match the red status indicator on screen.