Astro, An Amazon House Robot, Was Announced Shipping To The United Kingdom.

He can also automatically patrol the house and send notifications to his owner if he finds anything out of the ordinary. Amazon says it's more than "Alexa on Wheels" and is programmed with a series of gestures and expressions to give it personality. He demonstrates Astro's request for a "beatbox" - and the robot lowers its head and lets out a hip-hop beat as it plays.

Amazon also wants to prevent privacy concerns.

He said Astro could be set to "out of bounds" to prevent it from entering certain zones, or it can be set to "do not disturb." It also has a button to turn off the camera and microphone - although it loses the possibility when it's turned off. Amazon shows an example of checking if there is a gas stove left after leaving the house. 

Unlike some of its competitors, Amazon is "ready to bring a very experimental product to market" and see how customers react, he said. "Offering products reminiscent of science fiction novels positions Amazon as an innovative company in the eyes of consumers and investors," he said.

The robot should ship this year, Amazon announced - but only in the US. And after the limited initial performance, the price will rise to $1,449.99, he said. "I believe the Astro robot will sell out within minutes of entering the US market," said Wood. "I'm just sure it won't be shipping to the UK any time soon."

Amazon wants a share of the robotics market and boldly says it will have one in all households every five to ten years. He wants Astro to be the new mandatory member of the household, and there's no denying that the little wheeled robot is pretty cute - though the periscope popping out of his head is a little creepy.

But we've seen other cute humanoid robots - like Pepper - don't notice.

This is mainly because it will be a toy for the rich for quite some time because of its price. And while Amazon tries to convince us you're getting a lot more from Alexa on Wheels for this, it's hard to see a compelling use case for this, other than limiting the built-in paranoia you leave behind.

But making a robot is tricky. And if the home robotics market is skyrocketing, people will need to be made to spend big bucks. This first heist offers Amazon a chance to hone its skills. Perhaps no company is as firmly entrenched in our homes as Amazon. The company has been known for occasionally producing unique technology for smart homes, such as Alexa-controlled microwaves, since 2018.

At last year's event, Amazon turned its head indoors with a flying alarm drone. Always Home Cam starts from its staging department when it detects a potential break-in and can fly around the house with a video feed to check it out. But it was not released, and further details were not released last year.

Instead, Amazon said Tuesday it would open a list of invites for early adopters to buy drones on a limited basis — but didn't provide data for wide distribution.