Amazon is quietly building a new home robot after Astro's flop
· BehindLines newsroom
Amazon is taking another run at a household robot a few years after Astro, its first attempt, stayed a niche product. According to an analysis of job listings published by CNBC on 8 November, the company has put together a team that is hiring for what one posting calls a "new-to-world robot product". A now-removed engineering listing said robots were about to "step out of the movies and into our homes".
What is known
CNBC recalls that Astro, unveiled in 2021, was an Alexa-equipped tablet on wheels that could move around by itself, recognise faces and keep watch over a home. It never left invitation-only status and reached only a few thousand customers. A business edition launched in 2023 was discontinued less than a year later.
The new team draws partly on former Astro staff and on Fauna Robotics, a New York company bought in March. The Robot Report, which reported the purchase on 24 March, adds that Fauna has about 50 employees, that its founders Rob Cochran and Josh Merel are joining Amazon, that financial terms were not disclosed, and that the firm joins the Personal Robotics Group as "Fauna, an Amazon company".
Sprout, a possible foundation
Fauna's product, Sprout, is a humanoid about 3.5 feet (roughly 1.1 metres) tall, used mainly by developers and researchers. The Robot Report says it is built for research rather than household chores: movement, control and social behaviours come built in, but users must write their own applications. Its design stresses safety, with a lightweight body, a soft exterior and few pinch points.
October postings seek a field support engineer, who would handle customer support and on-site repairs, and a principal UX designer asked to define "what it feels like to live with a Fauna robot". That suggests a product aimed at customers, but nothing yet shows what form it will take.
What remains unclear
Amazon has not said which robot it is building, what tasks it would perform or when it might appear. CNBC writes that Amazon could adapt Fauna's robots for homes or for businesses. Spokesperson Brad Glasser told the network that the company takes a long-term view, that there is a large gap between laboratory performance and a living room, and that Astro helped build skills now used in other robotics work. Amazon continues to support Astro customers.
For consumers, nothing changes for now. The open question is whether Amazon can make a home robot both useful and affordable, after a first attempt that appealed to a small circle of buyers. CNBC also notes that Amazon dropped its planned acquisition of robot-vacuum maker iRobot in 2024 after competition regulators raised objections.