Asus Zenbo is a voice-activated smart home robot

Asus at its Zenvolution event at Computex 2016 introduced its latest robotic computing innovation dubbed Zenbo, a voice activated home robot designed to provide assistance, entertainment and companionship and to attend to needs of each family member.

The robot is capable of moving around independently and can understand spoken commands as well. It also offers specific functionality for senior family members to safeguard their health. It has a screen and built-in camera.

As a home assistant, Zenbo, provides spoken notification for appointments, medication, exercise schedules and more. It also monitors home emergency situations such as accidents and is able to notify specified member of the family on their smartphones immediately about the same, and the specified member will be able to remotely control the robot to move it around and use its built-in camera, to visually check on their family. The robot can also make video calls, check social media, help with shopping and stream movies and TV shows.

Zenbo also works as a companion for children,  as it can play music, dance,  and tell bedtime stories from the built-in library in a variety of voices, and display accompanying images on the screen and control room lighting as well. It also comes with educational games and interactive encyclopedia.

In addition to working with seniors and kids, Zenbo helps in household activities such as control devices like lights, TVs, ACs, and can be used as home security to unlock the door after you have authorized the robot. It can also perform kitchen activities such as read out recipes and function as voice controlled timer.

Asus has also announced Zenbo Developer Program which offers members access to Zenbo SDK to further improve the functioning of the robot.

The Asus Zenbo is priced at $599 (Rs. 40,000), and the availability details is yet to be known.