The retail and cloud computing giant has embarked on an ambitious, top-secret plan to build a domestic robot, according to people familiar with the plans. Codenamed “Vesta,” after the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family, the project is overseen by Gregg Zehr, who runs Amazon’s Lab126 hardware research and development division based in Sunnyvale, California. Lab126 is responsible for Amazon devices such as the Echo speakers, Fire TV set-top-boxes, Fire tablets and the ill-fated Fire Phone.
The Vesta project originated a few years ago, but this year Amazon began to aggressively ramp up hiring. There are dozens of listings on the Lab 126 Jobs page for openings like “Software Engineer, Robotics” and “Principle Sensors Engineer.” People briefed on the plan say the company hopes to begin seeding the robots in employees’ homes by the end of this year, and potentially with consumers as early as 2019, though the timeline could change, and Amazon hardware projects are sometimes killed during gestation.
More at the link
Success in this endeavor could arguably make the current Amazon share price look like a remarkable deal.
This, of course, wouldn’t be a quick multi-bagger, but for those of us with AMZN positions… this is interesting news.
Rob
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Not good news for iRobot’s share price today, that is for sure. – volfan
We have one of their robots. I’m happy with it. My Sweetie loves it.
What else would I like a robot to do?
I had to think about that for a bit:
Dusting. Seemingly a task we don’t keep up with. I’d love a dusting robot, but the challenges would be significant.
Get me something. No, I need the exercise of getting up for stuff.
Clean bathroom. That would be great. Another challenging task, I would think.
Clean kitchen. That would be great too. I think this would be extra tough.
Clean windows. Not a big need, IMO. And difficult to clean between screen and window.
I don’t know what else I need a robot to do! Inside at least. But I’m sure clever people are working on cooking up something. (Nah, don’t want a cooking robot).
Rob
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
With iRobot having announced their latest quarter of earnings this afternoon, here is a link to the prepared remarks for their call that will be tomorrow morning. The quarter’s year over year revenue growth was 29%, with the earnings guidance range for the year being bumped up $0.05 to a range of $2.15-2.40.
