What the Tech: Amazon’s Astro on guard

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - Amazon’s Astro robot is cute and pretty entertaining. Its big eyes constantly watch for movement and that’s why it could be good for securing your home.

Here’s how it works: Astro learns the layout of your entire home, at least one floor of a home. It can aim a camera at the front door, so when I’m not at home, I can check the app and Astro will send a video to my phone.

It will move from room to room, and looking out windows. If it detects something is amiss, Astro will send a notification to my phone.

It also looks for strangers. Each person who lives in the home has their face scanned by Astro. If I turn on away mode and it sees someone who isn’t on its list of profiles, it sends an alarm to my phone.

I asked a friend to barge into my home while Astro is in ‘patrol mode’. It detected someone came into the house and began investigating an unrecognized person, so it followed him gathering information and sending live video to me. Astro used a periscope camera to investigate when it heard a loud noise. Scanning the room to see what was going on.

Will it eventually be a good solution for a home security system? Probably not on its own. One great thing about Astro is that it works well with a Ring security system and other Echo devices

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