What the Tech: Amazon’s household robot

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - The age of “The Jetsons” is now upon us. Robots that vacuum, make cocktails and clean litter boxes are in use across the country.

Astro was introduced by Amazon nearly two years ago as the first widely available household robot. It’s expensive. About $1,700 after taxes. So, what does it do?

Astro learns the floorplan of your house and every now and then it leaves its charger to ‘hang out.’ It learns the names of each room, faces, voices and the names of people within the house.

Astro will search through the house looking for the person to deliver the message, or, deliver items in a cubby. Though, it does have trouble sometimes. It never located my son who was sitting on the couch, even after telling Astro which room he was in.

It’ll follow you playing music from your Amazon Prime Music account.

You can also make phone calls, and video calls to Amazon Echo devices and follows you so you’re always in the frame. Amazon will continue to add skills and abilities to Astro.

It’s cute and fun but not worth $1,500-1,700.

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