Overcoming that display limitation is just one of the benefits of Astro. In a world where faceless discs have dutifully sucked up carpet detritus for years, Astro is a category-defining robot that seeks to introduce us to a future of robots that extend well beyond the STEM-focused educational toys that dominate the fledgling category today, a future that can offer us everything from the pet-like benefits of companionship and protection to the kind of help with manual or dangerous tasks that Elon Musk has promised for his humanoid domestic servant.
Bringing forth the familiar
A primary application and market
It’s fair to say that Astro lands far from the vision of the Jetsons’ character with which it doesn’t share a name: Rosie the autonomous robot maid. Much of that is because of the product’s limited ability to physically act on its surroundings. In fact, as I can vouch after testing Astro in my home, much of the engineering work in Astro’s navigation has gone into avoiding contact with physical surroundings. Out of the gate, Astro’s most compelling application revolves around its roving sentry capabilities. With that focus on security and peace of mind, it capitalizes on the cornerstone of smart home interest. That application, though, has product implications, including exuding safety and reliability, particularly for a category that, along with AI, has inspired endless betrayals and catastrophes in the fertile imaginations of sci-fi authors and film directors. At no time did Astro feel dangerous or threatening. If anything, its presence was endearing. And, while I might not recommend having an enraged toddler have a go at its periscopic camera, I would say the same about many unprotected sophisticated devices such as an iPhone. Astro’s feature set and price should appeal to forgiving technophiles who accept its privacy implications and can offer spacious rooms for it to navigate. For such users, Astro would almost certainly complement, not substitute for, an intrusion detection system. Ideally, these would be in a ranch house. However, even though there were stairs leading downstairs on the floor where I tried Astro, it didn’t have much interest in investigating their precipice, much less somersaulting down them.
An emotional connection
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