Amazon has announced that its Scout delivery robots began delivering packages to customers in Southern California on Tuesday, Aug. 6.

To start, a small number of Scout robots will make deliveries Monday through Friday during daylight hours.

Amazon says that customers in the Irvine, California area can order things the way they normally do, and their Amazon packages will be delivered either by one of Amazon's carrier partners or by an Amazon Scout. The same delivery options are available via Scout including fast, FREE Same-Day, One-Day and Two-Day shipping for Prime members.

Initially, the robots will be accompanied by an Amazon Scout Ambassador, as they autonomously follow their delivery route.

Over the past few months, Amazon Scout robots have been making deliveries just outside of Amazon’s headquarters in Washington state. Amazon says that it has been delighted to see the reaction of customers who receive deliveries from the robots.

“One of our favorite parts of this journey so far has been witnessing how excited customers are when they see the delivery device for the first time and how they’ve welcomed Scout into their neighborhood,” Amazon says.

“In the span of a week, our Ambassadors witnessed a child ask her dad for a Scout for Christmas, and another customer ask if he could hitch his two dachshunds to Scout and use it as a dog walker.”

Amazon notes that it is constantly thinking about how its Scout robots will integrate into the neighborhood and delight customers.

“It’s the reason we developed Scout from the ground-up with safety and convenience in mind,” Amazon says. “From the design of the robotic hardware to the development of the back-end tech that operates the device.”

Amazon started this journey by creating dedicated hardware and software labs in Seattle, providing engineers, scientists, and Amazon’s operations staff the opportunity to quickly build and test the delivery devices.

“We don’t need to wait on external parts or software updates; we can rapidly prototype hardware components and write new code, and are able to validate our efforts in real-time,” Amazon says.