Forget Alexa, Amazon’s next big thing is a robot servant (and it could be here next year)

‘Smart home’ technology is everywhere, spearheaded by voice-controlled devices such as Amazon’s Echo – but where are our robot servants?

Amazon might be about to change that – and introduce a voice-controlled domestic robot which can follow users around their homes, like a self-driving car.

Sources within the company claim that the robot, codenamed Vesta, is currently under development in California – and the company hopes to start testing robots in people’s homes this year.

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It’s possible that the Vesta robot could be on sale as early as 2019, Bloomberg reports.

What’s less clear is what it’ll actually do: people familiar with the project have speculated that it’ll be like a mobile Alexa, following its owner everywhere.

Amazon is hiring robotics experts and computer vision experts, Bloomberg reported.

So far, the only ‘domestic’ robots which have sold in any volume are robot vacuum cleaners, but Amazon may be the company to change that.