A Day in the Life With Ballie: An AI Companion Robot for the Home

A new smart home companion welcomes users home by taking care of household tasks, displaying the day's events, and sharing weather updates.

With its new transparent MICROLED Display, Samsung unveiled Ballie at CES 2024. It's a ball-shaped AI robot that plays videos anywhere at home using its built-in projector. It also looks like LG's two-legged robot's sibling. More than flashing movies on surfaces, Ballie is an all-around home manager and assistant. It roams around the house autonomously, monitors the surroundings to ensure no smart appliances or devices are left switched on, and guards the people and pets by sending alerts to the owners running errands outside.

Ballie acts as a personal home assistant, autonomously driving around the home to complete various tasks. By connecting to and managing home appliances

Ballie can provide a helping hand to users in many situations, continually learning from users' patterns and habits to provide more brilliant, personalized services. Ballie delivers peace of mind by sending video updates of pets or loved ones to users' devices when they're away from home. Moreover, Ballie can set the mood for any home activity, whether users are exercising, working or relaxing. From projecting workout videos on the wall or floor in an optimal size to playing music and answering phone calls, Ballie makes life at home more productive and enjoyable.

Samsung says that its AI robot Ballie can be connected to these smart devices and appliances at home, so owners can take some household chores off their workload and share them with the robot. As routines and patterns recur, Ballie remembers them so the next time the owner wants to do something, say, switch on a lamp at a specific hour, the AI robot is already ahead of the user and turns it on or off for them. One of the key features of the AI robot is its ability to continuously learn, allowing it to adapt and tailor its behaviour to the user's needs.

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Ball-shaped AI robot that controls smart appliances

At CES 2024, Samsung introduces Ballie's other features. The AI robot that glides on the floor greets the owners when they open the front door and can project a welcome message for them on the floor as a replacement for doormats. Ballie can also set the mood for any home activity, whether the owners are exercising, working, or relaxing, by playing the music that suits the atmosphere and increasing or decreasing the brightness of the lights based on how it learns the users' patterns.

The AI robot can also automatically answer phone calls when the owners are too busy to pick them up. It rolls close to them so the owners can converse with the caller and hear their responses through the built-in speakers. Ballie can also display current news and events, including weather updates, on any surface the owners wish. Because of its installed projector, sensors, and cameras, Samsung's AI robot can also become a sizeable monitor screen for work or school.

Taking work calls using a projected screen

As seen in the video, it is enough to place Ballie on a desired surface and can extend the users' computer screen on the wall, floor, and more. The users can then continue working on their sketches, surfing the internet, and switching between work calls and meetings using its projector. It was in 2020 when Samsung first introduced the rolling AI robot during CES 2020, but since then, it has evolved into a home manager and AI companion with a given name, Ballie.

Samsung's vision for how it plans to integrate and use artificial intelligence for its future electronics, including Ballie, makes up its presentation during CES 2024. Jong-Hee (JH) Han, Vice Chairman, CEO, and Head of Samsung's Device eXperience (DX) Division, opened the press conference by describing how AI will enable connected technologies to improve people's daily lives while always remaining nonintrusive and in the background. As of publishing the story, Samsung has yet to pin down the mass production timeline of the ball-shaped AI robot and its other features.

Also read - Apple is working on a doorbell camera with Face ID.