$999 Amazon Astro: Don't Be Fooled (It isn't a Robot - It's A Camera-on-Wheels)...Part of a Trend of Surveillance Everywhere

 Home Sweet Home oh sure... and take  a close word-for-word look at this report by James Vincent today - and, of course, take the time to read in-between-the-lines

Don’t be fooled — Amazon’s Astro isn’t a home robot, it’s a camera on wheels

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Whether you like it or not, let’s be clear about what Amazon is selling

By James Vincent Sep 29, 2021, 9:44am EDT

 

James Vincent: "Yesterday, Amazon announced its “home robot” — a wheeled device named Astro that has a display, an array of sensors, and a camera that periscopes out the top of its body like a mast. In advertisements for Astro, Amazon presents the device as an engineering breakthrough and the realization of a long-held sci-fi dream: to build a robot that can help around the house.

This is rubbish, of course. What Astro is — for better or worse — is a camera on wheels.

 (Oh, and it absolutely cannot get a beer for you — a recurring meme when companies try to hype home robots).

The physical limitations of Astro are obvious.

> It has no arms or manipulators; no way to interact with the world other than bumping into objects at shin height.

> It can’t navigate steps, and, according to employees who worked on the robot and spoke to Vice, it is fragile and prone to self-destruction.

> “Astro is terrible and will almost certainly throw itself down a flight of stairs if presented the opportunity,” one told the publication.

(Oh, and it absolutely cannot get a beer for you — a recurring meme when companies try to hype home robots).

But Amazon is still offering customers quite a bit with Astro, and for those worried about the privacy implications of this technology, the basic usefulness of the device needs to be reckoned with.

> Amazon says Astro will use facial recognition to identify people in your home and recognize intruders. (Again, though, Vice reports that this feature works poorly in the real world.)

> The bot can be set to “patrol” your house at night and can be activated and steered remotely, letting you peek through its periscope camera via your phone.

In Amazon’s ad, a couple use this feature to double check they turned the stove off.

This is silly stuff, but it’s useful, too. These are features many people will want.

> Everyone cares about keeping their home safe and, if you’re already investing in home surveillance but don’t want to put a camera in every room, then Astro may seem like an attractive solution. (Whether people will pay $999 for the pleasure, and whether Astro will actually work as promised, are open questions.)

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