Roomba Maps for Smart Homes

This reminds me of work we did with test Roombas.  We were interested in how they compared with human cleaning process and also usage of possible cleansing liquids, in lab settings.  But I can see how the resulting maps might be used for Smart Home navigation and understanding.  I recently read that the still unreleased Kuri robot automatically builds maps of its home space.  As expected, has this has privacy implications, mentioned at the link.

Your Roomba’s digital map of your house could be for sale     by Eric David in Siliconangle

 Robotic vacuums like the Roomba have made it easy for even the laziest people to keep their floors clean, and now Roomba maker iRobot Corp. has found another use for the little robots: building maps for your smart home devices.

Some of the smarter Roomba models build maps of your home to make their cleaning paths more efficient. Over time, they learn the locations of walls, doorways, lamps, furniture and so on, which eventually allows them to clean your home without bumping into things over and over. The idea behind this mapping system is to reduce the time it take for your Roomba to finish its job, but iRobot Chief Executive Colin Angle says the mapping data is useful for more than just speeding up your vacuum. .... "