Do you remember watching The Jetsons as a child? If so, you can probably recall the family’s robot maid, Rosey, who wheeled around the house catering to their needs. Amazon Astro isn’t quite up to par with the type of robots we might have imagined as children, thanks to our Saturday morning cartoons and vivid imaginations, but it’s pretty close.

Amazon Astro is an in-development robot from Amazon with multiple capabilities, including monitoring your home, feeding your pets, and delivering items to someone in another room. If home connectivity is your ultimate goal, Astro could get you a step closer to keeping you connected with your home and family at all times. We’ll explain how it all works in this guide.

What Is Amazon Astro?

Amazon Astro is a techie robot that helps you around your home with everything from playing music as you move from room to room to monitoring your home when you’re away. Think of it like a personal assistant that’s a robot instead of a human, although it can also play the role of companion if you’d like it to.

Pros

• Several built-in features help you control your privacy
• High-quality sensors help Astro detect obstacles to freely move around your home
• Includes a free 30-day trial of Ring Protect Pro

Cons

• High cost prevents Amazon Astro from being accessible to many households
• Accessories and some features come at an extra cost
• Available on an invite-only basis

It’s worth noting that Amazon Astro is still in development by Amazon, so it’s not yet available to the public despite its first version being developed in 2021. Astro can only be purchased with an invitation at this time. Amazon Astro has continued to improve to keep up with security and tech advancements, although there’s no official public release date for the device. We suspect that Amazon Astro will become one of the best smart home devices once it is released.

How Much Does Amazon Astro Cost?

Amazon Astro is listed on Amazon for $1,599.99, shipped and sold exclusively by Amazon. You can also choose an Amazon payment plan for $133.33 per month for 12 months using an Amazon credit card, or $63.32 per month for 48 months using Affirm. Amazon credit card installments have 0% interest, while Affirm charges 10%-36% interest.

However, Amazon isn’t yet offering Astro to the public, so only people with invitations can order one at this time. We’ll talk about that more below.

How It Works

Amazon Astro does a lot of things, so we’ll break everything down as much as possible, from setting up the robot to connecting it to your Ring Protect Pro account to working with its privacy features.

Astro Setup

As you might expect, Amazon Astro has a somewhat involved setup process to make sure it does everything you want it to do. Fortunately, there’s an onboarding program that walks you through each step to prevent you from missing anything important along the way.

Your Astro comes assembled, so you only need to turn it on to get started with setup. Your first task after learning what Astro can do with the quick introduction is to create voice and visual IDs, which allow Astro to identify you when it sees you and when you speak to it. Then you’ll download the Astro mobile app and pair your Amazon account to the device using the app.

Finally, Astro will move about your home to learn the paths it can take. You can keep rooms you’re okay with Astro exploring open, or close off any ones you want to keep it out of. Astro absorbs all this information to understand its allowed paths and reduce its risk of bumping into walls or other obstacles. You can walk around with Astro to help it label different rooms, like “Molly’s bedroom” or “master bathroom.” This part of the setup process takes the longest, but still shouldn’t take longer than 30-45 minutes.

Intelligent Motion

Amazon Astro uses a technology known as Intelligent Motion to move through each room in your home, which you’ll help enhance during the setup process with your settings and home tour.

This technology uses sensors built into Astro that allow it to detect walls, closed doors, and obstacles around your home, like toys on the floor, household members, and pets, triggering the robot to move around those obstacles. This way, when Astro follows you, it can do so without bumping into people or things. Still, to allow Astro to move around more freely, it can help to keep floors and rooms free of clutter.

Monitoring Features

One of the prime uses for Astro is its security monitoring features. Astro can actively monitor your home when you’re not around, showing you each room you request using Live View. Astro’s built-in cameras allow you to check on any space in your home and record live video or photos by using the Astro app. You can also turn on active monitoring when you leave your home to have Astro alert you when it detects activity, like a potential break-in.

If you want Astro to have a specific path to follow when it monitors your home, you can create a map in the app’s settings to edit rooms Astro is allowed in or set boundaries for Astro to stay within.

Alerts

Amazon Astro sends Smart Alerts to your mobile device through the mobile companion app when it detects anything that sets off your Ring alarms, a person it doesn’t recognize, breaking glass, or smoke and carbon dioxide alarms. These alerts can help you keep track of what’s going on inside your home when you’re away, whether you’re at work for the day or on vacation for a week.

You can set up which alerts you’d like to keep and turn off through the Amazon Astro app’s settings.

Amazon Astro App

The Amazon Astro mobile app is the hub for your Astro, connecting you to your Astro account and all of your robot’s features. The app is non-negotiable if you own an Astro, as you’ll need it to complete your device’s setup, review everything Astro does during the day, get Smart Alerts, and monitor your home when you’re away.

The app also lets you change the mapping for your Astro, check in on your family members or pets through Astro’s cameras, set alarms or timers, and set up Alexa for more Astro functionalities, like calling people on your contacts list or playing music as you walk around your home.

Privacy

If you’re home and want to turn off Astro’s monitoring features completely, you can do so with a few helpful privacy features.

To turn off all cameras and microphones, use the Microphones/Cameras on/off button, which turns off their power to deactivate them immediately. You can also edit and delete your home’s maps at any time if you want Astro to stop having access to your home’s layout or to keep Astro away from specific areas of your home, like bedrooms and bathrooms.

Astro also offers parental controls through Amazon Kids. With an Amazon Kids account, you can set protections for your child to keep them safe when using Astro, allowing them only to access kid-friendly content.

Working with Ring Protect Pro

To utilize the full suite of monitoring features Astro offers, you’ll need a Ring Protect Pro account. Astro can detect certain home events on its own, like when fire alarms sound or breaking glass from windows, but connecting it to your Ring home security account lets Astro investigate the noises it hears and save any video clips to your Ring account for up to 180 days. Essentially, you’ll have more thorough monitoring and more control over how Astro monitors your home.

If you already have Ring Protect Pro, you can connect your current account through the Astro app. If not, Amazon Astro comes with a 30-day free trial, after which you can choose to become a full subscriber.

Limitations and Requirements

Amazon Astro is still in development, so you can expect to experience some hiccups along the way. The robot isn’t perfect, and the type of home you have matters when considering whether it’ll work like you want it to.

For example, Astro can transition into other spaces that use ADA-compliant ramps, but it can’t yet go up a set of stairs. So, two-story homes could be off-limits unless you want to buy an Astro for each level. Astro can also have difficulty with navigation on certain types of flooring, like ultra-glossy floors and dark flooring shades, like dark gray or black. Flooring transitions greater than 1.375” can also be a problem for the small Astro to move over.

Alexa Features

As an Amazon product, Astro works seamlessly with Amazon Alexa to help you out with just about anything Alexa can help you with, like playing your favorite music, telling you about the day’s weather forecast, or giving you reminders throughout the day. You can even ask Astro to follow you around as you go through your home so you can continue to hear the music it plays or video call someone when cooking dinner or cleaning.

That means you’ll also get access to Alexa Emergency Assist through Astro if you’re a subscriber. This helpful service saves emergency contacts for your household and helps you contact emergency services quickly to protect your home and family.

Accessories

Amazon Astro has a rear compartment that fits accessories to make it more functional. Currently, there are only three accessories available:

• Ziploc Storage Container: This storage container is the perfect size to fit in the rear compartment, allowing you to send snacks to someone in another room, like stocking up your kids for a movie night sleepover.
• OMRON Blood Pressure Monitor: Ideal for anyone who needs regular at-home blood pressure checks, this blood pressure monitor stores conveniently in Astro’s compartment. Call over Astro when you need a check and see your results on Astro’s display.
• Furbo Dog Camera: The Furbo Dog Camera helps you view your dog and give it treats while you’re away. Place the camera in Astro’s compartment using the built-in USB port to keep it powered, and you can have Astro find your dog and feed treats on your command.

However, we expect that, as Astro becomes more widely available, there will be numerous accessories to customize Astro.

How To Purchase Amazon Astro

Amazon Astro is only available on Amazon to select people via an invite-only program known as Day 1 Editions. There’s no set criteria to be one of the lucky few to own an Amazon Astro, so there’s unfortunately no way to tell whether you’ll get an invitation to purchase it or not.

You can request an invitation by logging into your Amazon account, visiting the Amazon Astro product page, and clicking the invitation link on the right side of the screen. If you’re chosen as an early purchaser, you’ll get notified using the same email address you use for your Amazon account with a link to buy Astro. After you’ve had time to test it, Amazon will request that you leave feedback about your experience to help improve Astro before it’s released to the public.

Is Amazon Astro Worth It?

If you can’t wait to have the latest tech, Astro can be an excellent tool for people who have pets alone in their home all day while at work and those who use Alexa and Ring systems. Or, perhaps you want a techie helper that allows you to complete some tasks hands-free when you’re at home, like listening to the news or calling family.

However, Amazon Astro is a big expense, and it’s still being developed to become the best it can be. If you’re not into trialing new products to help work out the kinks – especially at a hefty price tag – you might be better off waiting to buy Astro when it’s fully released.