Samsung's Ballie Robot Didn't Do Much At CES 2024, But It Sure Is Cute
Samsung's Ballie robot was one of the coolest things we heard at CES 2024. The spherical robot was a surprise from Samsung yesterday, even though the company first introduced its version in 2020. Ballie is now bigger and continues to grow. From tennis balls to bowling balls and has a built-in projector.
Unfortunately, Samsung won't let us meet Ballie in person in Las Vegas, but the company is showing a demo at its booth. Of course, it's tightly scripted and controlled, but at least it gives us an idea of how the company plans to use Ballie. The actor asked Ballie to start a workout routine for him and started showing him exercise videos on the wall and singing some songs. Sure, you can use a TV to do this, but if you have to lie down during rehearsals, Bally projects the video onto the ceiling so the actor can continue watching.
In another example, Ballie can visually represent a home's air quality by receiving data from a connected air purifier. In addition to seeing some statistics on the wall, Paley also discovered that the filter needed to be replaced. The idea here is to showcase Ballie's ability to communicate with and display data from all your smart home devices, even if they don't have their own display.
Of course, Ballie can also view events on your calendar, make phone calls, and show videos of things like the inside of a Samsung refrigerator or oven, as well as ring someone else's doorbell. In essence, Ballie looks like a smart home hub on wheels, and it can also display things whenever you want.
It's cute and fun to see Ballie rolling confidently across the floor of the demo area, but I don't even think it solves the problem in the real world. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out, but Samsung says it will be available later this year. I'm not entirely sure, as many similar projects have failed unsuccessfully, but I'm definitely a fan of the little robot.
We'll be reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas January 6-12. Follow the latest news from the event here .
