Samsung’s Ballie robot is probably never coming out

Samsung’s spherical Ballie robot may be rolling off into the sunset, less than a year after its retail launch was announced. The smart home robot has made an appearance at CES almost every year since it was first announced in 2020, but was notably absent at CES 2026. Unfortunately, its disappearance may be because Ballie has been shelved.

In a statement emailed to Bloomberg, Samsung said Ballie is an “active innovation platform,” and “continues to inform how Samsung designs spatially aware, context-driven experiences, particularly in areas like smart home intelligence, ambient AI and privacy-by-design.”

However, there was no mention of the robot’s consumer release. There was a flood of AI robots at CES this year, like Samsung rival LG’s CLOiD robot. Ballie, a bright yellow soccer ball-sized robot with a built-in projector and Google Gemini, would have fit right in, but it seems like Samsung probably isn’t releasing the BB-8 look-a-like after all.