October 29, 2013

Budgee robotic shopping cart follows you automatically while you shop

by Sayan Chakravarty

Tired of towing heavy shopping carts while browsing through the endless aisles in the shopping center? How about a cart that follows you where ever you go? That’ll be sweet, right! A New Jersey based start-up named ‘Five Elements Robotics’ has come up with a robotic shopping cart that automatically follows you around while you’re busy shopping. Called the Budgee, the robotic cart was shown off recently at RoboBusiness 2013 in Santa Clara, California and the company plans to launch it on Kickstarter.


Budgee follows an ultrasonic signal emitted by a homing device small enough to be carried in pocket. The robotic cart however doesn’t seem to have other sensor to automatically guide it around obstacles in its path and might need the shopper to help it do so. Dedicated Budgee app can be used to set the follow range as well as the color of the robot’s illuminated eyes. The three-wheeled cart can carry a total load of 25 lbs and will come with a price tag of close to $1,400 which makes it a costly little lazy boy toy.

[Via – Cnet]