Roomba is your home’s best AI accessory

October 13, 2021 · 0 Comments

By Mark Pavilons
Editor

Humans may still be on top of the food chain, but artificial intelligence is quickly gaining ground.
Our home is our sanctuary, and what better way to outfit it than with the latest, smartest technology.
According to Consumer Reports, it’s expected that the robotic vacuum market will grow to $3.7 billion by 2024. I’s clear that robotic vacuums will continue to be a central feature in many homes in the future.
The iRobot Roomba vacuum does all the work for you, while you venture out into the world again. Coming home is a joy, thanks to this level of intelligent cleaning.
The s9+ is the flagship model and it not only does the chore, but returns to it base and empties its own dirt. You could say it cleans and picks up after itself.
The unit boasts an Anti-Allergen System, and 99% of pollen and mold allergens are trapped from the robot to the base so they can’t escape back into the air.
It’s the most sophisticated and powerful robot vacuum yet and it shows.
The Roomba has a superior 3-stage cleaning system that lifts, loosens, then eliminates debris and pet hair from deep within your carpets for a clean you won’t believe. As it rolls along, it automatically increases suction to clean even deeper into carpets with power boost technology.
The s9+ also has sensors and a specially designed corner brush to get deep into corners and along edges.
The dual rubber brushes don’t get tangled with pet hair.
But the real magic happens inside its “brain.” The s9+ has vSLAM™ navigation and actually learns the layout of your home and builds personal Smart Maps, enabling it to expertly clean and navigate in neat, efficient rows. This gizmo captures more than 230,000 data points per section to optimize coverage.
Every time it cleans, it gets “smarter.”
It’s very easy to get going, right out of the box. Simply download the improved iRobot Home App and you can control its route, schedule, maps and more.
It’s really neat how our home gadgets can work together. If you ask Alexa to tell the Roomba to clean under the kitchen table, it will, without any argument!
Our four-legged friends have warmed up to the Roomba, after some initial curiosity.
Watching it during its initial few sweeps of our main floor was both fascinating and fun. You can actually see this device learning, planning, mapping. It really does try to get into every tight space, limited only by its dimensions. It seems like it has a certain amount of “determination” to get the job done, something humans often lack.
The app also notifies you if it runs into any problems or the unit gets stuck. You may have to give it a helping hand by removing any loose wires, cords or small rugs that get caught up.
But again, this unit is made brilliantly. You can access its main compartment easily, and you can see right away if there are any obstructions.
During our test runs, it seems the Roomba has risen to the head of the vacuum hierarchy. Maybe in the past these were secondary machines for small jobs, but they are now fully mature and capable of any task.
The beauty of the Roomba is that it can fit under a lot of furniture, such as sofas, and gets to places frequently overlooked by humans.
You’re paying a premium for this, but you’re getting much more than a vacuum. It’s an advanced robot that contains a mountain of computing power.
The Roomba robot vacuum is more akin to the latest smartphones and autonomous vehicles, featuring cutting edge vSLAM navigation, running on super-fast mobile chipsets, with intelligence powered by AI and machine learning.
iRobot Genius 3.0 enables products, like the Roomba s9+, to be a “smarter partner,” providing preferences not programming, and ultimately creating a thoughtful smart home environment that understands a customer’s lifestyle and cleaning needs.
iRobot developed a number of important robotics technologies for space exploration and defense and security robots during the 1990s. The company went on to develop other important robotic technologies, such as an industrial floor cleaner SC Johnson Wax and My Real Baby, through a partnership with Hasbro. All of these important steps in the company’s history would ultimately lead to the development of the Roomba robot vacuum in 2002.
iRobot was founded in 1990 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists with the vision of making practical robots a reality. iRobot has sold more than 35 million robots worldwide.
iRobot inspired the first Micro Rovers used by NASA, changing space travel forever, deployed the first ground robots used by U.S. Forces in conflict, brought the first self-navigating FDA-approved remote presence robots to hospitals and introduced the first practical home robot with Roomba, forging a path for an entirely new category in home cleaning.
So the company is really about robots, and the vacuums are really just a modern, convenient application. Who knows where this technology will take us, and how far the Roomba can evolve.
At one time, the Roomba was a cool, unique oddity but it has evolved into a smart home necessity. It’s an essential AI, one that works tirelessly, around the clock.
Thanks to iRobot, you don’t have to fear advanced tech, you simply have to embrace it.
For more, visit https://www.irobot.ca/