Amazon puts its rectangular, rolling robot out into the pasture. Scout, the supervised six-wheeled delivery bot that has been in testing since 2019, is no longer being tested or developed further, according to reports from multiple outlets.
The robot had been tested in cities in at least four states: California, Washington, Tennessee and Georgia. And Boy Scouts carried out orders there under the supervision of human “ambassadors”. However, these test programs no longer exist.
“During our limited Scout field test, we worked to create a unique delivery experience, but learned through feedback that there were aspects of the program that weren’t meeting customer needs,” Amazon spokeswoman Alisa Carroll told Gizmodo in an email. “We are therefore ending our field trials and realigning the program. We are working with employees during this transition and matching them to vacancies that best match their experience and skills.”
According to a Bloomberg report, around 400 people worldwide worked on the Scout project. Almost all workers will reportedly be transferred to other teams, while a small “skeleton crew” continues to consider possible autonomous robots, Bloomberg wrote.
“We are further exploring the concept, but reducing it somewhat. We still have a team dedicated to Scout,” Carroll said.
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While still roaming the streets, the boxy, battery-powered, light-blue robots carried small and medium-sized packages in an internal compartment in front of people’s doors. The bot’s lid opened to allow customers to retrieve their purchases.
Amazon scout
The end of Scout testing is just the latest cut in a series of austerity measures for Amazon that seem to signal financial strains. The retail giant announced a hiring freeze earlier this month. Then on Wednesday, the company also scrapped Glow and shut down its clunky kids’ video portal — an admittedly less charismatic design than the Wall-E-like Scouts.
And while the idea of a delivery robot that still leaves a person missing while the city’s sidewalks are cluttered seemed vaguely dystopian, at Gizmodo we wish the Scout-Bots a happy retirement. Wherever they are now, we hope they have enough smooth, flat surfaces to slowly move on.