I've had mine A little over 2 weeks now. 1 thing I think is great is you can summon Astro from any other Echo device (which I have all over the house) as in "Alexa, tell Astro, go to office" if your in the office. 1 of the things it said to try was ask your echo device what Astro is doing. That don't seam to work, but I can drop in on Astro with 1 of my echo shows & see where it is unless the room is dark. But if the room is dark I can say "Alexa, show Astro" & that'll raise the periscope cam & show with night vision. I find both those features helpful.
I think there is a lot that it can do that no one really knows about. It’s word of mouth and the facebook Astro owners group has several ideas and help for learning these.
Great review. Just got the invite a few days ago and purchased it yesterday. I have always been a robotics fan and even have a Create 3 which is a robotics platform by Roomba. I'm a developer and programming that one for fun, but Astro will be a cool addition to the house. When they release the developer kit for Astro I may try having some fun programming it. I agree with everything you said about expectations. I look at it as an R2D2 for the home and the first affordable home robot that navigates the home autonomously. I subscribed! By the way, the hardware tech in Astro and the amount of coding and algorithms to make it capable of what it can do is worth every penny. I know people think it's expensive but to buy the hardware that's packed in Astro would easily cost a $1000. They definitely are not making money yet.
Thanks for the comment and for subscribing. An R2D2 for the home is perfect analogy. I have 2 of the Husqvarna auto mowers for our lawn and they work great. Mow everyday if you want (which I do since it only cuts a slight amount which the grass grows daily. Also no clippings) so I enjoy the technology they have put into these Astros. I have a new one coming mid December and this one goes back to the lab. The screen makes a grinding sound. I need to make an updated video. I would like to keep this one, cause I’m kind of attached to the little bugger. I ask it to go to the office and it hangs out there with me and the dog making it’s beeps and it’s eyes blink and move side to side like he’s dying of boredom.
@@gnjadventures Did you buy the $149 warranty? I did not purchase the warranty yet even though Astro is on his way. Not sure if it is worth it since it is concurrent with manufacturer warranty, which means you are really paying $149 for an extra year. But since you are already sending one back maybe it would be piece of mind. I usually don't purchase extended warranties except I do insure my phones since they're easy to drop.
@@daver3681 I did not purchase the extra warranty. Maybe I should consider it. I don’t have kids in the house so the abuse factor isn’t there, but the screen creaking has me wondering if I should.. if it’s not too late.
Congratulations on your upcoming Astro. Be patient is the best advice. They are not difficult at all to set up. It’s actually quite easy and simple. If you have someone that lives on a floor below your apartment, they might and probably will hear Astro roll across tile floors. Our kitchen has 12X12” tiles and when Astro rolls through the kitchen it sounds like a semi truck crossing a bridge. Thump thump thump thump… you get the idea. Astro is heavier than I thought. It’s about 26 lbs. but I feel it’s worth it for the novelty, convenience and fun. Keep watching and I’ll be making more videos in the next few days.
You can play hide and seek. I was more curious on how long it would take to find me. Wife said take this to Gregg and it took him about 5 mins to find me.
I just placed my order towards the end of last week. I'm always interested in robotics, and what companies are doing with robotic technology. While this is really nothing more than a Show on wheels, there are a lot of possibilities if a development kit drops. There would be even more possibilities if Amazon created a new voice for Astro instead of using Alexa's voice. Maybe a higher pitched, slightly glitched voice. I think I might chronicle my journey with Astro on my RU-vid channel. It would be fun, and it would be good evidence if my Astro decides to brick itself.
I agree there are several possibilities with Astro. You can change the voice. Currently ours has an Australian accent. There are a couple of choices. I think you can also change Alexa’s voice by saying Alexa, change voice. I would love to subscribe to your channel. I searched Burrito Codes but nothing that matched your picture came up. Please if you could drop a link I will definitely subscribe and look forward to your chronicles. I am gathering things for us to do our 5 month Astro review.
Hey there, how long about did your Astro invite take to be approved and does everyone get approved you think? I have been waiting for my invitation since the middle of December and am praying I’m chosen soon.
Hi there. It took about 6 weeks. I was very surprised. I also do several reviews on Amazon so not sure if that mattered or the fact I had a single story home and no kids in the house. When I applied it said it would be a couple months. I hope you get yours soon. Please let me know when you get yours and how you like it.
@@gnjadventures Thanks so much for the input and that's great to know. I will be making vlogs every week about mine, haha because I'm obsessed with robots. may I please ask what month yours showed up? I know there was some trouble with one of the newer updates they had everyone reset their Astro too and I forget what months that took place but it should be all fixed now for shipping new Astro to customers still waiting. I thought production may have been stalled for however long to get everyone a replacement. Yeah I've heard that it took other people almost a year or over a year to get theirs months ago.
@@IcelaAliceXenomorph my Astro came in November 2022. I think I only wanted maybe 3 weeks to a month tops. What is the channel name and I will gladly join. Look forward to watching your vlogs.
So far, I'm hating my Astro. Today I noticed now you can say 'Astro, this spot looks good to hangout' so the robot can remember the place to wait for instructions. Before, the robot decided by himself, which was wrong 100% of the time. Battery life still sucks at paltry 2 hours and 50 minutes while idle, less than 2 hours if playing music at 50% volume.
Yes, I totally agree the spot it chooses to hang out at is not the best and I also heard you can tell it to hang out here and it would, but it doesn’t. The battery life is about the same as yours, but mine will go charge at between 55% and 30% so there’s no rhyme or reason for that. The pet recognition is what I am not pleased about. I don’t care if my cat walks across the floor at 2 am. I don’t need to know.
Yes, I tried to return him back to the charger, but it kept saying it was stuck and couldn’t move. We think it was a love seat that was setting about 2 feet from him. We’ve since relocated him to a different location and no issues.
