Amazon patents delivery robot that docks at your house
It's not enough to have an Amazon Echo in every room, no -- in addition to voice-controlled speakers to order Amazon products whenever you want, the e-retailer has plans for an in-home robot.
In a patent approved Tuesday, Amazon shows how getting all your packages could be simplified (and quicker) if a retrieval robot stayed at your house and met up with delivery trucks on the street to bring back your orders.
Yes, that means the robot would live in your house, ready to pick up packages once notified.
Remember Amazon Scout, the autonomous delivery bot? This is something like that, but the "autonomous ground vehicles," or "AVGs," won't need to travel as much. Instead they'll go from an apartment building out to the truck. No more individual delivery drop-offs to your front door powered by humans.
In the patent, Amazon envisions the bots as being in individual homes or serving an entire neighborhood or apartment complex -- so I guess your apartment manager could keep the Amazon bot next to the trash cans?
If you're a power user, the bot would make getting all your deliveries that much easier. You could own your own bot or group could go in one or three for the neighborhood.
It's just a patent, so this isn't a sure thing, but with delivery drones taking forever to arrive this could be the next best thing. Don't forget to feed the robot!
(H/T The Spoon)
Topics Amazon
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
