Meet Kuri, one of many robots debuting at CES 2017

LOS ANGELES — Kuri is short, cute and weighs 14 pounds.

The brainchild of Mayfield Robotics, Kuri is one of many home robots being introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's a home companion that will sell for $699 in the fall.

Think of Kuri as an Amazon Echo with wheels and eyes. The idea is Kuri can do all the things Alexa or Google Home can do now — answer trivia questions, play music, run your smart home and a little more. Using the built-in 1080p camera, Kuri can also take, for instance, cat videos while you're away and play them for you.

The hope is Kuri can be to the 21st century what Rosie, the Jetson's home robot, was to life in 2062.

"Many have dreamed of having a robot in the home," says Kaiien Hsiao, chief technology officer at Mayfield Robotics. From watching robots like R2-D2 in Star Wars and Pixar's WALL-E, "a robot has finally come to life" with Kuri, Hsiao adds.

At least 25 companies will showcase robots at CES. Why so many now?

"In the last decade, a lot of technological changes have come around due to smartphones," she says. "It made components more powerful and cheaper than they ever were, and we can leverage those changes to make robots."

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