Samsung, a South Korean electronics company, plans to introduce its spherical robot, Ballie, equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI), to households in the first half of 2025. This announcement was made at the CES in Las Vegas. Ballie is designed to act as a personal assistant at home, capable of performing various tasks.
Ballie isn’t entirely new. Samsung had already showcased a prototype at CES in 2020. In 2024, Samsung demonstrated some of the household assistant’s initial features. Now, in 2025, Ballie seems ready for the market.
The robot is spherical and moves on three wheels. It cannot climb stairs, so it is limited to one floor unless users manually move it to another level. Ballie is equipped with two cameras: a 4K camera at the front and a 2K camera at the back. It also includes various sensors, such as a Lidar module (Light Detection and Ranging), allowing it to navigate autonomously in household environments and perform monitoring tasks in homes. If it detects anything unusual, it reports it through an app on a mobile phone.
The most notable feature of Ballie is an integrated laser projector that can project videos, photos, and information onto walls and floors. The projector’s unit is movable, and Ballie can display buttons on the floor, which can trigger functions when pressed by foot. However, users should not expect a spectacular light show. Sound is delivered through a speaker.
Ballie receives instructions via an integrated microphone, allowing control of smart home devices with voice commands. An integrated AI can answer various questions within seconds. In a demonstration, Samsung showed how an employee held up two wine bottles to the robot and asked for a recommendation. The robot recognized the wine and chose one of the two. However, it remains unclear how flexible the AI is in providing such responses.
Ballie is expected to be released in the first half of 2025, initially likely only in the US market. Samsung has not yet disclosed the price.