The robots are slowly but surely conquering this year’s CES. During today’s press preview, Ottonomy debuted a new model that joins the New York company’s army of delivery robots. Yeti differs from other Ottobot models primarily thanks to the addition of a clever automatic delivery mechanism designed to avoid the need for a person to be present to receive the package. The startup calls the product “the first fully autonomous unmanned delivery robot on the market.”
Once it reaches its destination, the last-mile-delivery bot can drop the contents onto a curb or place it in a compatible locker for safekeeping until the human arrives to pick it up. Another interesting angle here is the potential for product returns – specifically, a customer can use the robot to return unwanted product to the original seller.
Yeti follows the late 2022 addition of another robot, Ottobot 2.0, which brings some interesting customization options to the table, including the ability to swap out different modular bins for different types of deliveries.
Image Credits: Ottonomy
The company has a number of concurrent programs in cities around the world, including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Oslo and Madrid. It is also working on expanding to other markets in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. Here in the United States, it works with Verizon.
“During the validation processes, we ran pilots with airports, retailers and postal services, which gave us the in-depth insights we needed about the most effective use cases and scalability,” says co-founder and CEO Ritukar Vijay. “With our strategic alignment with Verizon and other companies, we are in a great position to fill the gap that companies like Amazon and Fedex couldn’t. As the demand for and use cases for autonomous unassisted delivery continue to grow, we are positioned to bring robots-as-a-service to restaurants, retailers and beyond.”
Ottonomy announced a $3.3 million seed raise last August.
