Samsung's rolling Ballie robot is finally shipping this year

For half a decade, Samsung has been parading Ballie around CES like a cute tech mascot that would never actually make it into your living room. Now, the company swears this year is different.

Samsung has confirmed that its rolling AI robot will finally ship to consumers in 2025. While representatives told CNET and TechCrunch it will roll out sometime this year, TechRadar reported an even tighter window: the first half of 2025. Five years after its debut at CES 2020, Ballie might finally break free of the trade show floor.

A projector on wheels

At Samsung's First Look event, the bowling-ball-sized robot ran through a tightly scripted demo showing off what it can actually do.

When asked about a local landmark, The Sphere, Ballie initially beamed information directly onto the floor. But when the operator asked for driving directions and deeper details, the bot turned around and projected the display onto a nearby wall to give itself more canvas.

When tasked with playing the movie Uncharted, Ballie was commanded to enlarge the image and scouted a wall large enough to fit the bigger picture. The projection is not particularly bright due to ANSI lumen limits on such a compact frame, though it looks decent enough on the floor right beneath it. The built-in speakers, however, were surprisingly loud and punchy.

Beyond media, Ballie showed off multimodal AI chops. The presenter held up two wine bottles and asked which paired better with dinner, and Ballie answered in just a couple of seconds. It also projects virtual buttons onto the floor that users can step on to select options, and handles routine smart home commands like dimming lights.

Still a few red flags

As charming as Ballie looks, healthy skepticism is warranted.

The CES showcase was a canned, highly controlled demonstration where every response fired off without a hitch. It remains unclear how much of the interaction was live reasoning versus pre-programmed routines. The wheels also appear somewhat flimsy, raising questions about how it will handle thick rugs, door sills, or pet hair.

Crucially, Samsung still has not attached a price tag to the yellow rolling bot.

Why it matters

If Samsung actually delivers in the first half of 2025, Ballie could be one of the first truly consumer-facing rolling AI companions to hit regular living rooms. For early adopters, it offers a novel mix of an autonomous home projector, smart hub, and camera companion. Still, the novelty of a movie projector that follows you around might fade fast if daylight washes out the picture.

For the tech industry, this is Samsung attempting what Amazon has struggled to achieve with Astro: turning physical, embodied home robots into mainstream consumer products. If Ballie sells reasonably well, rivals like LG will face immediate pressure to commercialize their own concept home companions rather than leaving them trapped in keynote slides.

We think wrapping visual AI and projection into an approachable, BB-8-like form factor is a clever product hook. But the trade-offs are staring right back at us: dim projection brightness, questionable physical mobility over real-world obstacles, and a mystery price tag that could easily relegate Ballie to an expensive conversation starter rather than a daily essential.