In a paid access report released on Wednesday morning, Insider broke the news of huge teams of employees and an uncertain future for Amazon’s Vesta home robot.
Widespread reports of Vesta – named after the Roman goddess of home and of the home – began to emerge in April 2018, by which time it was a project of years. Its final shape is still uncertain, but prototypes now exist – one being described as “the size of two small cats”, with several cameras, a screen and a microphone. Insider sources described it as a Fire tablet on wheels, with the ability to move around the house and respond to voice commands.
This design may still be subject to change – which would probably not be the first time, as the project has suffered repeated delays since the beginning. Internal sources did not seem very clear about what Vesta’s “real” role would be and offered a lot of ideas. One such idea was a “mobile meeting platform for the home office” – allowing the user to roam around the house while being followed by the screen, camera and microphone on wheels. They also floated plug-ins to measure temperature, humidity and air quality, a camera on a waist-high retractable pole that can locate lost items using machine-learning vision and a small compartment to carry things.
Initial sales projections for Vesta are not optimistic, and Amazon may decide to launch it as a limited edition, invite-only project, to limit inventory risk. (The company had a $ 170 million low in unsold Fire Phones in 2014.)
Amazon seems serious about ending Vesta and putting it on the market, anyway. The peculiar project now has a team of more than 800 employees, which strongly implies the launch of a product and the associated need for technical support at some point in the coming quarters.