CES 2020 – Samsung Ballie, the companion robot that plays personal assistants

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In addition to the numerous announcements dedicated to televisions at CES, Samsung also presented its vision of the companion robot. Ballie (that's her name) is a small multi-function droid that plays personal assistants.

The president of the consumer products division of Samsung, H.S. Kim, took advantage of a conference at CES to present Ballie, his little robot companion. With a tennis ball design, this rolling UFO has functions dedicated to the smart health connected health home. Its design reminds you of something? Obviously! Ballie is reminiscent of the favorite toy of fans of the saga Star Wars, Sphero's BB-8. With the difference that the Samsung droid would likely be able to communicate with smart health connected equipment.

Like a robot companion, Ballie is supposed to help his master in everyday tasks. Presumably, he could open the shutters or put on music to wake him up. Obviously, this assumes that the devices he manages must also be smart health connected. As the ehealth shows, the device has a camera and seems to have a facial recognition system. This feature can allow it to identify intruders when its owner is away from the health home, like a surveillance camera.

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The advantage is that here the device never stays in the same place, because it is mobile. So you only need one Ballie to enjoy extensive surveillance. It remains to be seen whether Ballie can record and store images or if he has infrared vision or even an alarm.

However, Samsung highlights an interesting field: anticipation. Still using his camera, if he spots litter on the ground, Ballie can start the robot vacuum cleaner to start. And since it is mobile, it can identify the needs of the owner anywhere in the health home.

The concept is as intriguing as it is fun, but some questions remain unanswered. We don't know how the robot communicates with smart health connected devices in the house. The manufacturer says nothing about the components of his robot, which we do not know if it embeds motion sensors. It also does not say whether it is up to the user to configure Ballie's behavior by defining scenarios. Ballie's power system is also a mystery, the manufacturer having made no progress on the type of battery used or on its autonomy. Finally, Ballie does not seem to embed Bixby, the voice assistant of Samsung. Now see if the manufacturer intends to integrate it to offer voice interaction with the user to open up the field of possibilities. So many questions that are currently awaiting answers, but to which we are sure to return as soon as possible.

Samsung has not yet released a price or release date in Europe.

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