Ubtech's bipedal robot walks the walk at CES
The Ubtech Walker is a roaming, voice activated security bot.
This robot can move.
At last year's CES , I saw a lot of the pieces of the Jetsons' Rosie the Robot. Ubtech's latest invention might take the next step (pun intended) toward making an all-in-one helper bot a reality.
Ubtech is showing off the Walker at CES 2018, a bipedal robot that can walk a security patrol in your home and will respond to your voice commands. The Walker won't be ready until 2019, and by that time, the company hopes to add working arms as well.
For now, the bot detects motion and can alert you if something's amiss on its patrol. It can record security incidents with its built in camera, and you can interact with Walker via a touchscreen or with your voice.
Walker also allows you to make video calls, and supposedly integrates with your email and calendar as well. When you don't need Walker keeping a straight face on security detail, the bot can also dance and play games.
We saw a somewhat mobile robot from Ubtech at last year's CES called Lynx. Lynx has Amazon's assistant Alexa built-in and can guide you through an exercise or yoga routine. Hopefully, Ubtech's partnership with Alexa will carry over to Walker. If Walker comes with all of Alexa's capabilities, and can also work as a roaming security bot, it'd be a pretty compelling product.
Walker isn't the first mobile security bot we've seen. Mayfield Robotics showed off the adorable Kuri at last year's CES, but Kuri uses wheels instead of feet to get around. We'll look forward to testing both to see which mode of transportation is more effective. Ubtech hasn't yet specified a price for Walker.
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