The robots are slowly but surely conquering this year’s CES. During today’s press preview, Ottonomy debuted a new model being added to the New York firm’s army of delivery robots. Yeti stands out from other Ottobot models primarily thanks to the addition of a clever auto dispense mechanism designed to eliminate the need for a person to be present to receive the package. The startup calls the product “the first fully autonomous unattended delivery robot on the market.”
Once it reaches its destination, the last-mile-delivery bot can drop its contents onto a doorstep or transfer them into a compatible locker for safe keeping until the human arrives to pick them up. Another interesting angle here is the potential for product returns — specifically, a customer could put the robot to use to get unwanted product back to the original seller.