Samsung first revealed Ballie — its rolling smart home hub — at CES 2020. Now, at CES 2024, the adorable robot is making a triumphant return, this time sporting a new built-in projector. Samsung didn’t have a physical Ballie roving around at CES, but the team showed off a home bot demonstration video, revealing how the robot has evolved over the years.
If you’re unfamiliar with Ballie, think of it as a roving smart home hub, capable of taking orders from you and syncing with the rest of your smart home. Along with dishing out commands to your connected gadgets, it can serve as a patrolling security guard, giving you a live stream of your home while at work or on vacation.
The big addition to Ballie at CES 2024 is its new projector. This allows it to cast videos to the floor, wall, or ceiling based on the viewer’s position. Samsung says Ballie can detect your posture and facial position, using this information to determine how (and where) it should project its images.
The demo video showed Ballie projecting a video on the ground to distract a mischievous dog, projecting a workout video to the ceiling during an abs workout, and casting a work meeting to a wall for a person working from home.
Samsung didn’t reveal a release date or pricing for Ballie, though it’s likely to be quite expensive. The Enabot EBO X, another home bot that connects to your smart home and serves as a security guard, costs a staggering $1,000. Since Ballie packs in an additional projector and comes from reputable Samsung, expect it to carry a much larger price tag.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see it align more closely with Amazon Astro — a home bot currently only available by invitation and costs $1,600.
Here’s hoping that Ballie makes an in-person appearance at events later this year and that it gets a release date that’s not too far into the future. Along with Ballie, Samsung used CES 2024 to debut big changes to SmartThings and show off a futuristic lineup of smart home devices powered by AI.
