Amazon is reportedly working on its first home robot

Amazon is reportedly developing its first robot for the home, according to Bloomberg. The project has been given the internal codename “Vesta,” named after the Roman goddess of the hearth. It’s being developed by Lab126, the Amazon hardware R&D center that previously built the Kindle, Fire Phone, and Echo.

There are no firm details on what Amazon’s robot looks like or what purpose it will serve, but Bloomberg suggests it could be a sort of “mobile Alexa” — following users around their house to places where they can’t speak directly to an Echo speaker. Prototype robots built by Amazon reportedly have computer vision software and cameras for navigation, and the company is said to be planning to seed devices in employees’ homes by the end of the year. Bloomberg notes that the general public might be able to test such robot prototypes “as early as 2019.”

Ultimately, though, it’s too early to guess what Amazon’s intentions are, and it’s completely possible that this research might not make it to a finished product. (Or, indeed, it might just flop spectacularly, like the Fire Phone.)