Amazon has introduced a new home robot that brings together all the features of Alexa, plus some, and puts them on wheels to follow you around your house. The new robot, introduced this week, is called Astro and it's best described as an Echo Show 10 smart display on wheels, with added functionalities stemming from its ability to roam the house autonomously.

Astro can be sent to specific rooms to check on things remotely or follow a user during a video call thanks to its mapping capabilities and an extendable telescopic camera. When you're not home, it can also roam around and check that everything's in order. If a sound or movement is detected, Astro can check on that too and sound an alarm if needed.

Amazon has included a facial recognition option to Astro (processed on-device for privacy) that extends the robot's functionalities even more. It can use it to recognize users around the house, for example, and bring them various objects on command. Plus, if someone's in the house and Astro can't recognize their face, the robot can send a notification and a live video feed to the owner via an Alexa device or the Alexa app.

While Astro can do many things, there's plenty it's still unable to achieve. If Amazon added some extra robotic arms or gave Astro the ability to respond proactively to the situations it's programmed to detect, the robot could probably act a bit more human. Astro can tell you about it if the stove was stove left on, but it won't turn it off. Same for a window left open, and so on. Amazon has probably preferred to limit such robotic extras from a cost strategy perspective and keep Astro from becoming too uncanny, too soon.

In the beginning, Astro will go on sale in the U.S. only as a Day 1 Edition product, which means you'll have to get an invite to be able to buy it for $999,99. When it goes on sale for the larger public, the price will raise to $1,499.