As it attempts to develop a fully functioning smart home, Amazon will soon be able to map the whole of its users’ homes.
Amazon will have authority over the new Robot OS as a result of the internet giant’s $1.7 billion purchase of iRobot, the firm behind the Roomba vacuum cleaners.
This will give Amazon access to precise maps of people’s homes, which may be used to collect even more data on each user.
In order to map out a home’s structure and avoid over 80 commonplace things including shoes, socks, wires, headphones, garments, and even pet hair, the operating system already works in combination with a front-facing camera on the Roomba j7 vacuums.
This mapping technology allows it to comprehend specific instructions like “clean in front of the kitchen counter” or “clean around the coffee table,” according to CEO Colin Angle in May.
Amazon may achieve its objectives of building a fully working smart home while restricting which firms’ goods can connect to the house by putting this operating system on other Amazon smart home devices like Ring or the Eero router.
As a result, the corporation will have access to information about consumers’ homes, and everyone using an iRobot product will be providing that data to Amazon.
In May, Angle said in an interview with The Verge that the AI-powered operating system will give Roombas and other gadgets a “cloud-based home awareness.”
According to him, the technology would allow an air purifier from Aeris, which iRobot acquired last year, to detect when people are in the kitchen and switch on in the living room instead, where its noise would not be disruptive.
When this was first proposed, Angle said, “the notion is an operating system focused on not only activating the functionality of the robot, but doing so in harmony with what’s going on in the house.”
He pointed out that iRobot’s vacuums are already capable of understanding voice instructions to clean particular rooms and responding to 600 Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri speech requests.
However, he said, “We can know where things is with the new AI-powered operating system, so that if you screwed in a lightbulb, switched on an air purifier, plugged in a toaster, or installed a speaker, the position of such items can be promptly recognised.”
Angle stated, “The barrier to the next level of AI in robotics is not stronger AI, it’s context. The breadth of what we’re doing with iRobot OS is at this higher level of understanding.”
For ten years, he said, people have been able to comprehend the phrase “Go to the kitchen and grab me a drink.”
But it really doesn’t matter whether I comprehend your words if I don’t know where the kitchen is or what a drink looks like.
The basic promise of robotics, which is to reach out and do physical duties in the house, “can only be realised via understanding,”
Amazon, which has dominated the smart home market for the last several years by making it simple for items to link to Amazon Alexa, might benefit greatly from the technology.
Additionally, the operating system could make it possible for the company’s roving Astro home security robot to interact with other gadgets as it moves about the house.
As Amazon takes over the business, Angle is anticipated to remain there.
According to Dave Limp, senior vice president of Amazon Devices, who made the announcement of the acquisition last week: “Over many years, the iRobot team has proven its ability to reinvent how people clean with products that are incredibly practical and inventive, from cleaning when and where customers want while avoiding common obstacles in the home to automatically emptying the collection bin.
Customers like iRobot products, and I’m eager to collaborate with the team to develop ideas that will improve and simplify their lives.
iRobot was established in 1990 and is well known for its robotic vacuum cleaner, Roomba. It generated $1.56 billion in sales last year.
This is Amazon’s fourth-largest transaction to date, after only the $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market in 2017.
Behind that came Amazon’s $8.45 billion acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and its $3.9 billion purchase of healthcare company One Medical.
Strio was one of Amazon’s four purchases this year.
AI, GlowRoad, One Medical’s primary care facilities, and iRobot.
The business bought five more in 2021: Umbra 3D, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a TV and movie studio, Art19, Wickr, and Veeqo.
But iRobot’s announcement of a large loss for the second consecutive quarter was made only one week before to the announcement of Amazon’s purchase of the firm.
Although the company’s sales in the quarter exceeded $121 billion, it nonetheless posted a $2 billion loss as it continued to control expenses.
Many of the losses were attributable to growth during the sales flurry it encountered at the beginning of COVID.
However, the loss was lower than the $3.8 billion loss the business reported for the first quarter of this year.
That loss, which was the first since 2015, was exacerbated by a significant write-down on their Rivian electric car business.
Although Amazon’s shares fell more than 1% again on Tuesday and are now down 17.7% over the last year, they did rise by 12 percent in after-hours trade.