{"id":432173,"date":"2026-09-10T22:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/432173\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T22:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:08:11","slug":"robots-seen-roaming-universal-city-sidewalks-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/432173\/","title":{"rendered":"Robots seen roaming Universal City sidewalks. Here’s why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robots<\/a>\u00a0have made their way to South-Central Texas. For now, a suburb north of San Antonio is their temporary home.<\/p>\n

Residents in a local Reddit<\/a> group are curious about the tiny, vest-wearing machines spotted on sidewalks in Universal City. A post published on Wednesday, September 9, read, “Have y\u2019all seen these in your neighborhood? What exactly are they for?” Dozens of people left guesses in the comments, ranging from a new version of Flock cameras to Wall-E wannabes.<\/p>\n

In reality, these 3-foot-tall automatons, called Dax bots, are the product of an Oregon-based company that develops “people-centric autonomous robots that enhance communities across the U.S.,” according to its website<\/a>. They began roaming 12 miles along busy corridors in Universal City on Monday, September 7, as part of the town’s commitment to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bots are taking measurements and collecting information about the area’s pedestrian infrastructure. City officials have told MySA that this will help engineers and planners create a detailed, accurate record of what already exists and which streets could pose challenges for people with mobility issues. Ultimately, the data will be used in a capital improvement program that includes fixing those spots.<\/p>\n

With their small size and human-like build, it’s no surprise neighbors are finding the bots entertaining. Universal City even hosted a photo shoot<\/a> for the area’s folks on Thursday, September 10, to accommodate the buzz.<\/p>\n

“They make little R2-D2 (Star Wars character) noises when they’re out there,” Randy Luensmann, Universal City’s director of Public Works, said at a meeting<\/a>. “We don’t want to encourage nobody to be in the way of them so they can do the data collection. But if you’re out there and you want to get a picture with them … it’ll actually stop, and you can be able to take a picture if you’re out there.”<\/p>\n

However, some on social media expressed concerns about privacy and surveillance. City Manager Kim Turner says Dax bots do not store facial images, personal details or private interactions with pedestrians, nor do they track vehicle license plates. A press release states that the\u00a0bots record in the rare case a safety incident occurs.<\/p>\n

“The cameras capture ground photos exclusively focused on the physical condition of the pedestrian infrastructure being assessed,” Turner said. “Specifically, noting slip, trip, or fall obstacles, slopes or grade of ground, location of ADA ramps and the like.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robots\u00a0have made their way to South-Central Texas. For now, a suburb north of San Antonio is their temporary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[847,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-432173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysanews","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}