Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

Amazon's controversial vision for the future of your home security

Amazon's controversial vision for the future of your home security

Amazon's vision for the future of home security includes drones flying over your roof, outdoor cameras that monitor for possible trespassers and cute robots patrolling indoors.

During an invite-only press conference on Tuesday, the company showed off an autonomous, 20-pound dog-like robot named Astro with large, cartoon-y eyes on its tablet face and a cup holder. The robot -- not unlike an Alexa on wheels -- uses voice-recognition software, cameras, artificial intelligence, mapping technology and voice- and face-recognition sensors as it zooms from room to room, capturing live video and learning your habits.

Amazon also announced a subscription service called Virtual Security Guard for Ring cameras. Ring, the smart doorbell and camera company it acquired in 2018 for $1 billion, will work with third-party professional monitoring companies, such as Rapid Response, to analyze a live feed from its outdoor cameras.

The agents can use the camera's two-way talk functionality to communicate with visitors and activate the camera's siren or send emergency services as needed. (Ring already sells a $250 drone called Always Home Cam with an attached camera that can automatically fly around your house and stream video to your smartphone.)

For Amazon, these products offer the promise of taking a piece of the lucrative home security market and also pushing customers deeper into its ecosystem of household products. Other tech companies have stepped into this market over the years, including Google with its Nest Aware video recording system and Nest smart doorbell. Companies such as Logitech, Arlo and Netamo offer similar products.

But Amazon's decision to expand its offerings in this product category comes at a time of widespread scrutiny of the power and data privacy practices of the tech industry's biggest players. And Amazon's latest eyebrow-raising security products, with their potential for greater surveillance in and around our homes, may test just how much further companies can push consumers' comfort levels with such intrusive technology.

"Tech companies once promised a future like Star Trek, but Amazon is trying to sell us RoboCops," said Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project and a fellow at the New York University School of Law. "And while these products promise safety, they're really a threat. These sensors would give us a disturbing new reality where it's impossible to escape the tech giant's roving drones within our own home."

It's a seemingly bold move for Amazon as its reach and power have drawn scrutiny from regulators around the world. Amazon has elicited privacy concerns before with its smart home devices. In 2019, for example, a Bloomberg report revealed Amazon employed a global team that transcribed Alexa's voice commands on Echo devices captured after the wake word was detected to help improve Alexa's grasp of human speech. (Amazon later said people could opt out of Amazon using their voice recordings.)

Privacy advocates also slammed a 2019 move by Ring to give law enforcement easier access to videos recorded on its doorbells for active investigations. (Since June, police and fire departments may only request information or videos related to an active investigation through public posts called Requests for Assistance.)

Shortly after Tuesday's event, leaked internal documents published by Motherboard revealed concerns raised by Astro's development team around the safety and privacy of the Astro robot, with one person who worked on the project reportedly calling it "a privacy nightmare that is an indictment of our society." An Amazon representative pushed back at characterizations in the report in response to Motherboard and noted Astro makes use of on-device
processing for tasks such as recognizing individuals.

Following the publication of this article, Amazon told CNN Business privacy is fundamental to its products' design. "We only collect information needed to provide and improve our customers' experience. When we collect data, we secure it and use it responsibly to improve the experience, while providing customers with transparency and control over their information," a spokesperson said.

How Amazon is trying to get inside customers' homes


Amazon kicked off its presence in our homes in 2014 with the Echo speaker, which became a hit for the company. Amazon has since crammed its Alexa virtual assistant into every kind of device imaginable, effectively acclimating its users to the possibility of the company listening to them all the time in exchange for greater utility. Now, its latest products are basically pitching that on steroids.

"Clearly we are moving into different territory now with the arrival of more experimental products such as the Always Home mini-drone camera and the Astro robot, but I believe that Amazon is using their products to learn more about consumers' willingness to have such devices in their homes," said Ben Wood, chief analyst at market research firm CCS Insight. Wood also said some consumers are willing to accept tradeoffs around privacy for the feeling of reassurance and security that products from companies like Amazon provide.

Amazon appears to be taking steps to make that tradeoff feel less severe.

A Ring spokesperson told CNN Business any agent monitoring a stream from its Virtual Security Guard service cannot access saved recordings, or download or store any videos, and customers will know what events were viewed by an agent. Customers can also set up privacy zones that are off limits for agents, but this may be small comfort to visitors and random passersby who are still caught on camera.

On the Astro product page, Amazon notes the robot's microphones, cameras and sensors will be disconnected when powered off. When Astro is recording, a light will turn green and it can be programmed to avoid certain areas of the house. In addition, images of faces can be deleted and anything that's sent to the cloud will be encrypted. Astro does create a map of the home based on where the robot explores, but the company said that data, which is sent to the cloud, does not contain actual images or streamed video.

Then there's the appearance. Amazon has dressed up surveillance technology as an adorable companion watch dog, making it much more appealing for customers, according to Jonathan Collins, a director at market research firm ABI Research. "Cute-ness is subjective but certainly the more emotionally invested someone is with a device -- and that can be driven by pleasurable visual or audio exchanges -- the more it is likely to be used," he said.

In a YouTube video posted by the company this week, Amazon developers said they took inspiration for Astro from science fiction movies and cartoons. They also noted it was important to include eyes on the robot and give it a personality, so it can better connect with users.

Other tech companies have tried to gain traction with home robots, including Softbank's Pepper, Anki's Vector robots and Samsung's Ballie, the latter of which would allow users to watch pets, family members or check in on things around the house when away. But Ballie was never commercialized and the others never caught on.

Astro, however, builds on the company's strength in robots, artificial intelligence, computer vision, sensor technology, voice interactions and edge computing, Wood said. Coupled with Amazon's reach and scale, this launch is far more notable, he added.

Amazon's Astro robot


"With an introductory price of $1000 and a small number of units available to a limited audience I believe the Astro robot will sell out in minutes when it becomes available in the US market," Wood said. (It ultimately will cost $1,500 after an invitation-only purchasing period.)

If Astro succeeds, it may be just the start. According to previous ABI Research projections, about 79 million homes globally will have a robot in the house by 2024. And one of the selling points for these robots will almost certainly be home security features.

In the YouTube video, Charlie Tritschler, a vice president of product for Amazon, said the idea for Astro came after a senior leadership meeting when someone asked if anyone in the room thought people wouldn't have robots in the home in next five to 10 years. "Everyone said, 'Yeah, we are.' So we said, 'Let's get started," he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Trump Backs Putin’s Land-for-Peace Proposal Amid Kyiv’s Rejection
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
United States Sells Luxury Yacht Amadea, Valued at Approximately $325 Million, in First Sale of a Seized Russian Yacht Since the Invasion of Ukraine
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
Australia to Recognize the State of Palestine at UN Assembly
The Collapse of the Programmer Dream: AI Experts Now the Real High-Earners
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
Germany Enters Fiscal Crisis as Cabinet Approves €174 Billion in New Debt
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Mediators Edge Closer to Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement
Germany Seeks Taliban Deal to Deport Afghan Migrants
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Robots Compete in Football Tournament in China Amid Injuries
×