What would an Amazon Alexa robot look like?
Alexa may be getting some legs.
A domestic robot powered by Amazon's digital assistant looks to be in the cards now that Bloomberg is reporting the e-commerce giant is developing some kind of automated servant for the home. Amazon is well on its way to creating prototypes of the robot, according to the report, with the aim to have it in consumers' homes as early as next year.
The exact goal of the project, said to be codenamed "Vesta," is unclear, but smart money is on some kind of mobile Alexa speaker that can move from room to room, extending the digital assistant's presence in a home. The idea is it would be equipped with sophisticated computer-vision capabilities so it could navigate a home like a Roomba robot vacuum.
If it's just an Alexa-powered mobile speaker, it may not give enough reason for customers to care.
It's not a terrible idea, though if it's just an Alexa-powered mobile speaker, it may not give enough reason for customers to care beyond the early-adopter thrill of owning a domestic robot. Amazon's cheap Echo Dots already do a good job of letting users easily put Alexa in more rooms, and even when that isn't convenient (like, say, a bathroom), there are portable speakers with Alexa that will work.
A robot Alexa would need to perform some other function (like, say, folding clothes or fetching cans of soda from the fridge) if it really wants to become part of Amazon customers' daily routines the way the Echo speaker has. In other words, it'll have to solve some kind of problem in a way that every other domestic robot -- from the versatile Pepper to the adorable Jibo -- hasn't.
The Roomba is perhaps the one domestic robot that's broken through, thanks mainly to its singular function. Of course, the Roomba is already enabled with Alexa skills, so it's unlikely Amazon is looking to compete directly with iRobot.
Still, the vision of a C-3PO-like robot in every home is an intoxicating sci-fi vision that's hard for big tech companies to ignore. Google tried to summit that mountain a few years back, but ended up scuttling the effort and selling off its robotics division, Boston Dynamics. That company continues to develop impressive animal-like robots, but it hasn't really produced anything other than occasional videos that terrify the internet.
What seems very clear from the report is that this project doesn't intersect with Amazon Robotics, which builds robots that help manage Amazon's warehouses.
The Vesta project is in the hands of Amazon's Lab126, which developed the company's Echo and Fire TV products. Gregg Zehr, who heads up Lab126's R&D division, is said to be leading the effort, with the goal of seeding the robots to Amazon employees later this year and a possible consumer launch in 2019.
Various job openings on the Lab126 careers site, including "software engineer, robotics" and "senior applied robotics scientist," strongly suggest the Amazon company is looking to dive deeper into robots.
If Vesta is indeed just an Amazon Echo speaker that can walk from room to room, let's hope it at least is equipped with cup holders.
Topics Alexa Amazon Amazon Echo
Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
