Samsung Ballie is a tiny rolling robot with advanced AI and BB-8 vibes

Samsung showed off an interesting product during its CES 2020 keynote today in Las Vegas. It kicked things off with the Samsung Ballie, a small rolling robot that gives off major BB-8 vibes. For those who don’t get the Star Wars reference, Ballie will follow you around in the home and help out with tasks.

Ballie appears to be a prototype concept at this point in time but it will eventually be offered as a consumer product. Some of the possibilities that Samsung has highlighted at CES do make it seem that Ballie will play an integral part in the smart home of the future.

Samsung Ballie is designed to be your life companion

Samsung didn’t provide any details of the technology inside Ballie but it evidently has a camera and other sensors that allow it to recognize its owner and follow them around. Samsung says that Ballie will be “actively helpful” around the house. The examples highlighted show Ballie opening smart blinds in the morning and controlling other smart home products like Samsung’s robot vacuum.

Samsung’s H.S. Kim gave a short on-stage demo of the robot during his keynote. It seemingly used the camera to track and follow him around the stage, giving off chimes in response to his voice commands, and even rolling right into his hands when he called for it.

Using its advanced On-Device artificial intelligence capabilities, Ballie can also help out as a fitness assistant. On-Device AI is crucial for gaining customers’ trust in a product that has a camera and follows them around in their home. Samsung will likely elaborate further on data safety standards for Ballie when this concept becomes a reality.

Samsung envisions that such robots to become our “life companions.” It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how Samsung takes this concept forward. No additional information has been revealed about Ballie, so it’s unclear when this robot will be launched and how much it’s going to cost.