Amazon Vesta project appears to be ramping up for production

In a paid report released Wednesday morning, Insider broke the news of massive employee teams and an uncertain future for Amazon’s Vesta home robot.

Widespread reports of Vesta – named after the Roman goddess of home and hearth – began to emerge in April 2018, when it was already a years old project. Its final form is still uncertain, but there are now prototypes – one described as “the size of two little cats” with multiple 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 could still be subject to change, which probably wouldn’t be the first time, as the project has suffered repeated delays since its launch. Insider sources didn’t seem too clear on what Vesta’s “real” function would be and offered an explosion of ideas. One of those ideas was a “mobile meeting platform for the home office” – allowing the user to walk around their house while being followed by the screen, camera and microphone on wheels. They also pioneered ideas like plug-ins for measuring temperature, humidity, and air quality; a camera on a waist-height retractable pole that could find lost items through machine learning vision and a small compartment for carrying items.

Vesta’s initial sales forecasts are not optimistic and Amazon may decide to launch it as a limited-edition, invitation-only project to limit its inventory risk. (The company took a $ 170 million write-off on unsold Fire Phones in 2014.)

Amazon seems serious about finishing Vesta and marketing it, whatever. The original project now has more than 800 employees, which strongly implies the ramp-up of a product launch and the associated need for technical support in the coming quarters.