Amazon unveiled several new products at its online unveiling event in September, including an autonomous robot that can monitor a person’s home for intruders.
The $1,450 robot uses intelligent motion to check-in on your home while you’re away and give alerts about any disturbances.
It can move autonomously around your home, navigate to check in on specific areas, show a live view of rooms through the Astro app, or send alerts if it detects an unrecognised person.
Astro can move autonomously around your home, navigate to check in on specific areas, show you a live view of rooms through the Astro app, or even send alerts if it detects an unrecognized person
Astro will be priced at $1,450, but as part of Amazon’s Day 1 Editions program – which gives customers the chance get early access and contribute feedback – it will be available for an introductory price of $1,000.
Amazon also unveiled the Echo Show 15, a kids device called ‘Amazon Glow’ for them to share an ‘interactive projected space’ with loved ones and a new security doorbell.
The £240 ($250) Alexa-powered Echo Show 15 device boasts a 15.6-inch display that you can mount to your wall or place on your counter.
Users can hang it horizontally or vertically on a wall, like a photo frame, as it displays how-to videos, recipes from the web or shows streamed from Netflix and Spotify.
Echo Show 15 has a 15.6-inch display that you can mount to your wall or place on your counter
Echo Show 15 can display a live-stream from your smart doorbell, streaming services interfaces, personalized sticky notes to members of the family and much more.
If you’ve opted to hang it from the wall and want to disable the display, users can ask Alexa to show a photo frame, and Echo Show 15 just shows photos, so it blends into the background.
Amazon Glow, meanwhile, is a two-part device designed for children that lets them remotely connect with loved ones by participating in activities together.
During video calls on Glow, kids see a chat participants on a dedicated 8-inch display on a black device that looks almost like a retro walkie-talkie.
As they do so, they can be reading stories, playing games, and creating art on a 19-inch, touch-sensitive, ‘projected space’ that almost looks like a sheet of paper.
As children are enjoying engaging activities on the flat ‘projected space’, remote family and friends see the child on a tablet and participate in the same activities using a free Glow app.
Amazon says Glow combines ‘immersive projection, sensing and video technologies to make it feel like you’re having fun in-person’.
Read more: Here’s what Amazon announced at its autumn unveiling event