Amazon Astro: a home monitoring robot sold by invitation only

Amazon Astro is a home robot that roams the house and watches it through a camera. Since its 2021 launch it has been sold only by invitation, and its business version was shut down within a year.

A home robot with a periscope camera

Amazon unveiled Astro in September 2021. It drives around the home on wheels, builds a map, and raises a camera folded inside its body up to 40 inches to look around. Owners can check the house or relatives who live elsewhere from an app. It cost $999.99 at launch with a regular price of $1,449.99. It was not on open sale: only people Amazon invited could buy one.

A few hundred early units and a business version that vanished

In February 2022 Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, reported that at most a few hundred Astros had shipped. By September 2023 the vice president in charge had left, and Astro went unmentioned at Amazon’s annual devices event. That November Amazon launched Astro for Business, which patrolled shops and offices, at $2,350. In July 2024 it announced the end of the business version, and the units stopped working on 25 September. Reports disagree on compensation: a $300 credit, or a full refund.

Concerns about surveillance

Soon after launch Vice reported leaked internal documents and comments from anonymous developers. One called Astro “a privacy nightmare that is an indictment of our society”. Amazon disputed the report. Henrik Christensen, a robotics researcher at UC San Diego, said instead that “Astro is a huge step forward.”

The terms of a camera that walks around your home

Astro is a robot whose first job is watching the home rather than helping the people in it. The reassurance it gives owners and the burden of a camera in the house come in the same body. In May 2026 it was still listed by invitation at $1,599, but how many have sold has never been disclosed.

Who wants a camera that roams the home, and who is made uneasy by it?

What we haven’t confirmed