Amazon Reportedly Working To Develop Household Robots In Sunnyvale
SUNNYVALE (KPIX 5) -- Another futuristic Silicon Valley innovation may be taking shape at an Amazon research facility in Sunnyvale were the company reportedly has a secret mission involving the development of household robots.
The robots are reportedly being developed at Amazons Lab 126.
To give an idea of just how sensitive Amazon is about the facility, as KPIX 5 cameras were shooting video on the public sidewalk, teams of security guards said we couldn't point our cameras at their property and called Sunnyvale police, claiming the crew was trespassing.
After consulting city zoning maps, Sunnyvale police said it was indeed public property and allowed the crew to stay.
Update 4/27/18: A review showed Sunnyvale Dept. of Public Safety consulted an outdated zoning map, and the sidewalk is actually Amazon private property. -Editor
Bloomberg put out a report early Monday morning titled, "Amazon Has A Top-Secret Plan To Build Home Robots."
Citing unnamed sources, they said the project has been dubbed "Westa" after the Roman goddess of hearth, home and family.
There are a lot of unknowns: Will it talk? What it will look like and what will it be able to do?
Remember Clio, the doomed home robot that was demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year?
It failed to operate correctly in front of a huge crowd and stands as a glaring example of how the technology is still in its early days.
But Amazon has robots in its DNA. Their warehouses have been using them for years to speed up efficiency and reduce ship times.
What's more, Lab 126 has hundreds of open positions in software and hardware engineering and, of course, robotics.
Amazon did not confirm or deny the Bloomberg report.
Tech analyst Tim Bajarin told KPIX 5 that right now, it doesn't look like anyone can crack the code when it comes to home robots.
"They're one of the companies that could try to pull something off," said Bajarin. "But remember the failure they had with the Fire cell phone tells you they don't always get it right."
He says if Amazon is actually working on it, then they're doing what companies in the valley do.
"This has been going on in Silicon Valley from Day 1. You play the 'what if?' question. What if I could create X? And then what would the consumers think about it? And I think this is one of those," explained Bajarin.
According to the Bloomberg report, the robots could begin beta testing in customers' and also employees homes by 2019.
