The Amazon Scout Wheeled Robot hits the Streets

Amazon’s vaunted delivery drone; the Amazon Scout, have finally hit the streets and it is a wheeled robot.

Amazon Scout; a six-wheeled robot is making deliveries in Snohomish County, Washington State, and Irvine, California, a press release and media reports claim. Interestingly, they design Scout; which is about the size of a baby carriage, to operate on the sidewalks.

Essentially, Scout is a box on six wheels that hauls merchandise from a van to your home. An Amazon video shows Scout pulling up to a house and a customer opening the box and retrieving packages. Thus, a good way to think of Scout is as a storage locker on six wheels.

Will Amazon Scout Work?

I think the Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Scout is more realistic than the famous flying drones.

However, Scout could be harder to sell to the public. For instance, will people accept a wheeled box driving down sidewalks? There has already been a big backlash against electric scooters in some cities.

Moreover, Scout will be impractical in rural areas; neighborhoods with no sidewalks, and suburbs with long distances between homes. Yet Amazon designed Scout to be in-obtrusive, The Verge reports.

Thus, Scout could face less opposition than Digit, Agility Robotics’ walking delivery robot. Ford (NYSE: F) could test Digit delivery from the back of a Transit van, Market Mad House speculates.

It looks as if delivery robots are a reality. However, nobody knows how the public will react to these contrivances. Expect to see some ugly and paranoid attacks on robot delivery as companies expand its use.