It only took five years and a refreshed partnership with Google, but Samsung’s BB-8-like Ballie robot is finally ready to roll into homes as soon as this Winter. At least in the early stages of Ballie’s life, Samsung will take a big swing at customers in the US, with no mention of an expanded release elsewhere. That’s fine by us. If Ballie is really as bright as Samsung makes it out to be, it might be safer to sit this one out, robotic apocalypse pending.

The balls are coming from inside the house

“Available to consumers this summer, Ballie will be able to engage in natural, conversational interactions to help users manage home environments, including adjusting lighting, greeting people at the door, personalizing schedules, setting reminders, and more,” the company said.

Customers are essentially shelling out for a fancier Alexa+ subscription, but, instead of running your life from inside a harmless little Echo Dot, Samsung has given Ballie a set of wheels and the ability to move about fit – though its primary goal is to follow its owners around, spouting reminders and dishing out style advice. That’s not to say we couldn’t take a megalomaniacal Ballie gone rogue, but the road to GLaDOS is shorter than it seems.

Ballie gets its AI smarts from Google’s Gemini multimodal capabilities, “along with proprietary Samsung language models” that handle several inputs, including voice, visual data from the onboard camera, and sensor data as it roams about your home. With Gemini behind the brains, Ballie is supposedly more conversational than before and adjusts its behaviour and responses in real time.