Gerry Palmers Tech 09.28.2022 23:Sep PM EDT

Amazon’s Astro Robot Can Now Detect Pets, Recognize and Alert Owners of Issues at Home

Home security systems have impressed us much with innovation that guarantees safety and convenience, but Amazon has gone to the next level with the technology, with a more mobile, reliable, and adorable monitoring system called Astro.

The $1500 automaton basically acts as a personal assistant on wheels, just like a moving Alexa going around your home, just like an AIBO that looks after your schedules and serves as a guard dog, Tech Crunch reported.

New Astro Features Include Pet Detection, Recognizing Specific Things at Home

Amazon on Wednesday a set of new features on Astro, including detection of a real live cat or dog.

These new features include pet detection and the ability to recognize and check specific windows and doors in your home, Wired noted in a report. This is part of Astro's current core security system competency of servicing as a kind of rolling security system that strengthens existing stationary cameras such as Ring.

Pet detection, meanwhile, was apparently one of the most requested features among the early Astro owners. It's able to recognize dogs and cats and send you a video push when it sees movement. Unlike person detection, however, Astro is not capable differentiating your pets but instead relies on a broader model focused on cats and dogs.

The new feature, which will be available later this year, will be enabled while the Astro is "on patrol" around your home. When Astro encounters your pet cat or dog, it will shoot a short video clip of them and share it with you via Live View, as part of the Alexa Together system.

Amazon vice-president for consumer robotics Ken Washington said Live View could also be used to give commands to your pet or snap a pic to add to your pet albums. This, he said, will provide "a live connection" to your pets and, in turn, enjoy peace of mind about them, wherever you are.

Astro Offers New Multimodal AI Capability

Astro now also carries enhanced situational awareness. It can map out its own patrol routes through your home but using a new multimodal AI capability, Astro will actively focus on things users want it to learn about and alert them if things aren't right. Here, Astro will learn by looking at an object, such as a door, and listening to users speak about it, such as that the door should always e shut, then add those information into its monitoring duties. If it detects a problem, Astro will take a picture of it and send it to the user and stand by for further instructions.

For owners seeking to modify their own Astro, Amazon is also rolling out a new software development kit (SDK). Amazon has not given the word on its availability. Washington noted that it makes a early form of the SDK available to students of three of the world's leading robotics schools later this year, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, and the University of Michigan.

Here, robotics students can help kickstart third-party feature development for the robot. As has become the case with so much consumer hardware over the past decade, Amazon appears to consider Astro as a type of platform on which developers can expand functionality.