Amazon's got a 'top secret' plan to put robots in your home by 2019, according to a new report
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Amazon's reportedly building out a line of home robots. The project is codenamed, "Vesta."
The robots are said to be able to navigate homes autonomously.
According to Bloomberg, Amazon's line of domestic robots could arrive as soon as 2019.
Amazon's next big move could be putting a robot — or several robots — into your home. And they could arrive as soon as 2019.
That's according to a report on Monday morning from Bloomberg, which says that Amazon is several years deep into a project codenamed "Vesta" — a project to create domestic robots that could live with you.
The plan, according to Bloomberg, is to start testing the robots in Amazon employee homes by this year, with a potential public rollout in 2019.
The crew behind "Vetsa" is said to be Amazon's Lab 126 — the same folks who created Amazon's wildly popular Echo line of products, as well as Fire TV and Fire tablets. As such, Vesta is seemingly an extension of Echo rather than something entirely new.
To be clear: It doesn't sound like Amazon's domestic robot project is intended as a robot butler/maid, a la Rosie from "The Jetsons."
Elaine Thompson/AP
Similar to previous projects from Amazon's Lab 126, it sounds like Vesta is currently Echo on wheels. "People familiar with the project speculate that the Vesta robot could be a sort of mobile Alexa, accompanying customers in parts of their home where they don’t have Echo devices," the Bloomberg report says.
The Vesta project is distinctly different from Amazon's other work in robotics, like Amazon Robotics (which focuses on automation rather than consumer products). Nor does it sound anything like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' affinity for the robots of Boston Dynamics:
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Taking my new dog for a walk at the #MARS2018 conference. #BostonDynamics pic.twitter.com/vE6CXrvV3o
Amazon reps didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. An Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg that it doesn't comment on "rumors and speculation."
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