Samsung’s artificial intelligence-powered home robot Ballie has been one of the company’s most closely watched projects for years. Although Samsung has repeatedly indicated that the product is coming soon, the small robot remains a concept product to date.
However, a newly leaked set of design images provides the first look at the software experience Samsung has planned for Ballie. A series of early UI (user interface) design sketches reveals the approximate interface of the AI robot’s companion app, although the app’s name and icon have yet to be finalized.
According to the design images, the app does not use the name “Ballie” directly, instead referring to the device as “Home Robot.”
The app’s main interface is centered around a large status card that displays information about the robot. At the top of the interface, Ballie’s battery level, current location (such as docked at the charging station, in the kitchen, living room, or another room), and current status (such as “Ready” or “Error”) are shown. The center of the page also features a prominent “Streaming” button.
It is not yet clear exactly what “Streaming” refers to, but it most likely allows users to remotely view a live feed from Ballie’s built-in camera, giving it the additional function of a mobile home security camera.
In fact, the main interface also includes feature cards called “Home Monitor” and “Greeting,” further hinting at some of Ballie’s intended capabilities.
It is worth noting that the “Greeting” module includes a toggle switch, suggesting that users may eventually be able to enable a personalized greeting feature. When Ballie detects someone returning home, it could proactively greet them. Samsung has previously demonstrated Ballie’s ability to recognize and interact with family members.
For home monitoring, Ballie appears to require a multistep initialization and setup process.
According to the design images, the robot first moves around indoors to scan the home environment and generate a house map. Because Ballie is equipped with a built-in projector, it will also automatically look for walls or other flat surfaces suitable for projection and save these locations as projection areas.
Samsung previously stated that the projector can not only display various types of information, but also play videos, show fitness guidance content, and support video calls.
Of course, these design sketches do not prove that the final retail version will use the same interface or features, but they offer the first look at Samsung’s overall vision for Ballie’s software experience.
Based on these designs, Ballie will likely be deeply integrated into Samsung’s SmartThings smart home ecosystem, becoming the central control device for the entire smart home system—assuming, of course, that the robot eventually launches commercially.
