Amazon Astro Can Do More Than Patrol Your Home

Amazon Astro on the floor of a house

Astro can do so much with simple voice commands.

Amazon

Amazon Astro, the company’s £1,000 home robot, is more than a smart display on wheels. It can grab you a beer, patrol your home and even beatbox. Plus, this robot’s personality and cute face makes it feel like a friend.

For now, Amazon is only selling Astro by invite only, but that likely won’t be the case forever.

As it gets more and more polished, Astro, like other Amazon Day 1 Editions before it, will likely start to roll out to a larger audience — at which point its price will jump to £1,500. With that price tag, the question for most people is, what does Astro do that’s worth that price tag? We put together a list of everything Astro can do so far — so you can decide whether it’s really worth the money for you.

Home security

Astro’s biggest selling point for many people will be its home security features. Not only can it listen for breaking glass or alarms, using Alexa Guard, but it can also pair with a Ring Protect Pro subscription to patrol your home while you’re away, sending notifications if it senses anything out of the ordinary.

In addition to the automated features, you can also take control of Astro remotely and drive it around your house, checking on the pets or kids — or just making sure you turned off the stove. To get a higher-angle view, you can raise Astro’s periscope camera to see from above countertop height.

Commands:

“Astro, patrol the house.”
“Astro, I’m leaving.”
“Astro, disarm.”
“Astro, set monitoring to Home.”

Simply say, “Astro, go to the charger” to make it return to the charging port.

Chris Monroe/CNET

Errands

While Astro doesn’t include a vacuum, it can still get a lot done while it zooms around your house. That includes finding people (using Face ID), following people, delivering snacks or drinks and charging your phone with a USB-C port.

Commands:

“Astro, go to [name] in the [room name].”
“Astro, find [name].”
“Astro, follow me.”
“Astro, remind [name] to take out the trash.”
“Astro, take this to the [room name].”
“Astro, create a to-do.”
“Astro, go to the charger.”

Play

If you’ve got kids, Astro can be a pretty compelling (and admittedly expensive) toy.

Although Alexa is on board, Astro very much has a personality of its own. You can ask Astro to dance, beatbox, rap, burp, imitate various animals, speak, sing and plenty more — and each request will be met with some cute movement, expression and sound. My kids have already asked Astro to do the robot at least 30 times in the past two days.

If you have a dog, Astro can pair with a Furbo pet camera to buzz around, launching treats along the way. In addition to the more novel stuff, Astro can also play music and stream TV shows on its screen, just like an Echo Show smart display. It can even follow you around while it plays it.

Commands:

“Astro, play [song].”
“Astro, beatbox.”
“Astro, sing.”
“Astro, act like a bumblebee.”
“Astro, let’s dance.”
“Astro, act like a bird.”
“Astro, take a selfie.”
“Astro, play [podcast].”
“Astro, do the robot.”
“Astro, rap.”
“Astro, [pause, play, resume, stop, fast-forward, rewind].”

In patrolling mode, the periscope camera can go pretty high.

To close the periscope feature, say “Astro, down periscope.”

Amazon

Communication

Again, like an Amazon Echo, Astro can help facilitate communication, letting you video chat with far-away friends or family. And unlike countertop-bound smart displays, Astro can even follow you around while you chat.

Commands:

“Astro, call [name].”
“Astro, hang up” or “Astro, end the call.”
“Astro, drop in on the living room.”
“Astro, drop in on [name].”
“Astro, call for help.”
“Astro, send a message to [name].”
“Astro, video call [name].”
“Astro, answer the call.”
“Astro, play messages.”

Now playing: Watch this: Astro in Action: See All the Robot’s Features and Tricks

10:52

Everything Alexa can do…

We’ve written a different article to go in-depth with everything Alexa can do. Astro has Alexa built in, so that means everything there, Astro can do, too.

You can buy supplies with Amazon Prime, video chat, play music and a lot more. Behold, the complete list of commands you can give to Amazon’s Alexa and our roundup of the best Alexa skills.

We’re still learning. And so is Astro

Our relationship with Astro is new and exciting.

In a way, it’s like we just started dating and we’re trying to get to know each other — which takes some time. With that said, we still don’t definitively know every command or skill Astro is capable of right now, but we’re working on it. As we’ve mentioned, Astro is still a “Day 1 Edition,” meaning it will inevitably develop and improve.

As we continue testing and our relationship with Astro grows, we will continue to update this story with more information.