Piaggio's innovation laboratory, Fast Forward, is ready to launch its first product for the mass audience: it's called Gita.
Piaggio Gita is a small spherical robot that can be considered an "intelligent mobile luggage": it carries up to 20kg of personal effects following the owner.
Voila the robot porter
Piaggio has oriented Gita for use by people who go shopping, or have to bring gym equipment, or even toys for children and other things.
Thanks to Gita you can walk peacefully hands-free, or have space to carry more.
Since the first Gita prototype was shown to the press in a 2017 presentation, the creators of the Vespa have added new features to the robot.
First of all, as written, Gita follows the person who precedes him as a faithful helper. At a speed of about 10km per hour, (in the 2017 presentation we talked about 35km per hour), which does not make it suitable for helping joggers, unless they want to lose it on the street.
Gita takes privacy very seriously, they say at Piaggio, and for this reason he does not take pictures or record videos: he simply does his humble, honest job as a chaperone.
It goes without saying that it gives its best on solid surfaces such as roads and pavements, it still has difficulties on dirt and mixed or rough terrain. He won't take your towels to the beach, because he doesn't go to the sand. He won't follow you to the first floor if you don't have an elevator, because he can't go up the stairs.
On the climbs you have to be careful, because Gita cannot overcome slopes greater than 16 degrees.
Could the Piaggio Gita app be missing?
With the trusty smartphone you can open or close the top case that Gita carries with it, check the charge status and send some songs via Bluetooth. Gita runs for 4 hours before discharging, and returns to 100% with a 90-minute charge.
It's not that easy to steal: difficult for someone to "kidnap" Gita while he is following me: he weighs 35 kg, he carries another 20 in the trunk, and to take him away it would take a very strong sprinter.
If anything, the problem is another: the movement restrictions I mentioned earlier, combined with the not-so-affordable price (just over 3000 euro) make Gita a still impractical solution for the mass market.
We will probably see him at work in the indoor market, perhaps carrying construction tools or otherwise helping people indoors.
