Amazon is rapidly seeking to develop a new home robot, overcoming the stumble of its previous project, “Astro,” whose spread was limited to private invitations. In this context, during the past months, the company formed an engineering team specifically to work on creating “an unprecedented robotic product in the world.”
Amazon indicated in a job advertisement that was later deleted – according to CNBC – that robots are “about to move from movie screens to our homes,” explaining that the new product is designed to work effectively in “changing home environments” side by side with family members.
This move comes after Amazon launched the “Astro” robot at a price of $1,450 in 2021, based on directives from the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, in 2017. However, the device did not achieve the desired spread and reached only a few thousand customers. Moreover, the company has terminated its business version, which was launched in 2023, less than one year after its launch.
To enhance its efforts in this field, last March, Amazon acquired the New York-based startup Vona Robotics, which is the developer of the 3.5-foot-tall humanoid robot “Sprout.” The company has integrated it into a newly established division called the “Personal Robotics Group.”
This new department includes former human cadres from the “Lab126” unit, which was historically responsible for developing the “Kindle,” “Echo,” and “Fire TV” devices, in addition to the “FirePhone” phone, which suffered a commercial failure in the past.
Commenting on these trends, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy emphasized in his recent annual letter to investors that artificial intelligence and robotics technologies represent “the most radical transformations in our lives.”
For his part, Brad Glaser, a spokesman for Amazon, explained in statements to CNBC that the company is optimistic about a future in which personal robots play an effective role in people’s lives, pointing out at the same time that there is a large gap that still exists between robotic performance in controlled laboratories and its actual performance inside living rooms and building lobbies.
On the economic level, Barclays Bank estimated in a report issued last January that the market for human-like robots, whose current value ranges between $2 and $3 billion, may witness tremendous growth to reach about $40 billion by 2035, and may reach $200 billion according to the most optimistic scenarios.
