Amazon is building a new home robot after its Astro reached only a few thousand homes.
The company is assembling a team to create a “new-to-world robot product” to operate alongside family members, according to a CNBC analysis of job postings.
A New Robot Team
Over the past several months, Amazon has assembled a new team to work on this “new-to-world robot product,” CNBC reported. A job listing for an engineer, which has since been removed, stated: Robots are about to step out of the movies and into our homes.
The post detailed a product capable of navigating “dynamic home environments” and “autonomous operation alongside family members.”
The Astro Stumble
This new effort comes after Amazon’s previous home robot, Astro, was sunsetted less than a year after its business release. Astro, an Alexa-equipped tablet on wheels that can move through a home autonomously and recognize faces, was introduced in 2021 but was only available by invitation. It shipped to just a few thousand customers. The company also released an Astro for businesses in 2023 before sunsetting it less than a year later.
The Fauna Acquisition
Earlier this year, Amazon redeployed much of the team behind Astro and brought in an MIT roboticist to work on the home robot project. To boost the effort, Amazon acquired New York-based Fauna Robotics in March. Fauna has built a 3.5-foot-tall humanoid robot called Sprout.
At the time of the acquisition, Amazon said Fauna would become part of a new division dubbed the Personal Robotics Group. An Amazon job posting for a user experience designer stated: Our goal is simple: make robots people actually want to live and interact with in everyday human spaces.
