Amazon Astro review: too much Alexa, not enough arms
The Astro, in contrast, knows what personal space is, always maintaining a respectable distance from people, pets, backpacks, and any other sizable stuff that happens to be lying on the floor in its path. Instead of barreling into things, it will reroute or just wait to be rescued if there’s no way out, which is what it wisely did when my daughter left her double bass in front of the bot’s charging station.
The Astro does use a similar navigation and mapping technology to its vacuum-enabled cousins, but cleaning isn’t its purpose. Instead, its main role is to just be there when you need it. When it’s got nothing to do, it finds a spot to hang out where it thinks it will be most helpful. When its battery gets low, it goes to its charger.
Astro’s “face” is a 10-inch Echo Show-style touchscreen mounted onto a 12-inch pair of wheels. A small cargo area brings up the rear, which features a 15W USB-C port, handy for charging a phone or tablet or powering some Astro accessories . There’s a 5-megapixel camera built into the screen and a 12-megapixel camera that pops out of the top of the bot, extending on a somewhat perilous-looking periscope so the Astro can get a better look at something.
The mute button shuts down the Astro’s mobility and navigation sensors and disables the cameras and microphones.Like a regular Echo smart display, you can ask Astro to play music, set timers, stream an episode ofon Hulu, lock the front door, or call mom for a video chat . What’s different is that it can do all of these things on the move.
I think this is down to Astro’s personality being too limited. Beyond a handful of facial expressions using its two round “eyes,” a few beeps and boops, and some disarming, eerily lifelike “head” tilts, there’s not much to interact with. And when Alexa barges in on the conversation, as it invariably does, the novelty is instantly disrupted, mainly because Astro’s “eyes” go away, and you’re left with a regular Echo screen.
I programmed the robot to fart every time it saw my 14-year-old son, but other options include roar, dance, express love, and say “Welcome Home” . This only worked sporadically, however. As with the other Echo Shows with Visual ID, it’s hit or miss if it will recognize you correctly. If you plan to use Astro as a security robot, adding Visual IDs allows it to tell you when it sees someone it doesn’t recognize.
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