Smart Home Gets Cleaner

Quite a step forward, if it delivers.   Its like they have done the easy stuff, now work on harder problems for the smart home. And cooperates with other devices to get it done.

iRobot’s new cleaning robots can team up to vacuum and mop your house
A job shared is a job halved

By Jon Porter@JonPorty in TheVerge

iRobot has a pair of new cleaning robots, the Roomba s9+ and Braava Jet m6, that can work in tandem to vacuum, mop, and dust your house. You coordinate the process from the iRobot app, which will automatically tell the mopping and dusting $499 (€699) Braava Jet m6 to clean your wood or stone floors after the $1,299 (€1,499) Roomba s9+ has vacuumed.  .... " 

iRobot and Google Assistant Partner

Home robotics has not been very successful, except in rather narrow domains.    In particular in linking with the concept of a 'Smart Home', and requirements of spatial awareness.    Now iRobot and Google are going in that direction.

iRobot and Google partner to make your smart home cleaner

When it comes to smart home products that keep your house clean, it’s hard to beat iRobot’s line of Roomba vacuums. They are basically synonymous with robot vacuums, and they’re about to get even smarter than they already are thanks to a little A.I. infusion from Google.

The two firms are teaming up to improve the functionality of Roomba vacuums to better fit into the overall smart home experience. The companies announced that they are working together to create new integrations between their platforms, though so far details are sparse. What we do know is iRobot and Google want to use the information gathered by their respective devices to better understand a user’s home. As an example, the companies suggest that spatial awareness from a Roomba could help simplify smart home setups and enable new automated processes. ... 

Better Roomba Needs a Breakthrough

We spent quite sometime looking at home robotics,   It has now been around for some time, and continues to mature.  It  will require some breakthrough in value to become common.

An iRoomba Review in Wired.
This bot features iRobot's best vacuuming tech, but at less than half the price, about 50% of the time. ..."

Roomba Beta Advances

iRobot Launches Beta Program to Test Smarter Home Features for Roombas  By Evan Ackerman  in IEEE Spectrum

Robots like the 900 series Roomba, which have the ability to make detailed maps of your home while they do chores, are poised to become much more useful than they've ever been. These maps are in the process of enabling all kinds of new features, most of which we can only guess at, but iRobot will be giving us a peek at what they're working on with a late Christmas present: a new beta program for Roombas.

In a next step to make the smart home smarter, iRobot today announced a new Beta feature that allows customers to view a Wi-Fi Coverage Map created by Roomba. The Wi-Fi Coverage Map feature is the first to be available as part of iRobot Beta, a program that enables a limited number of iRobot customers to trial unreleased product features for the company’s consumer robots. iRobot Beta is accessed through the iRobot HOME App and will be available in mid-January (US only).

WiFi Map
Wi-Fi Coverage Mapping is a Beta feature that enables Roomba 900 Series vacuums to detect WiFi signal strength throughout a user’s home to highlight areas that may have poor connectivity. Users can then work to determine ways to fix Wi-Fi issues, resulting in an improved customer experience when using connected devices within the home. Users simply start a Roomba cleaning job, and the robot will collect Wi-Fi signal information as it cleans. Upon completion, users will receive a notification to view the Wi-Fi Coverage Map that was generated. The user will be able to toggle between the familiar Clean Map™ Report, which shows where Roomba cleaned, and the Wi-Fi Coverage Map. ... "

Roomba Does IFTTT

Big follower and user of IFTTT,  like to see it taken further for the smart home, think it can be taken further yet, especially by adding more intelligence to the 'Apps'.   Now Roomba is in the mix.

Roomba now supports IFTTT functionality
‘Tweet to start a cleaning job’     by Dani Deahl  @danideahl in TheVerge .... " 

 ... The article also reminded me that Alexa and Google Home have already been integrated with Roomba ....

Reviews.com Examines Roomba Vacuums

If you have read this blog for any time you know I am a long time follower of Smart Homes.  I also managed the technical aspects of Procter & Gamble's Home and Store innovation centers.    We looked at many home technology applications that could influence the business of Retail and CPG companies. In particular we looked at the earliest iRobot Roomba home robotics, to see how they would influence the future of home care.  See the Roomba or Smart Home Tags for more.

Have not followed new systems from Roomba for some time, but Kayla Allen of Reviews.com sent me a link to the reviews they have for the Roomba Vacuums.  See below for an abstract and link.  Great in dept coverage, discussion and images.   I did not know there were so many options.   Good update for me.  Will be following their reporting on home robotics from now on.

The Best Roomba Vacuums
The best of the best in robot vacuums
The 30-Second Review

The best Roomba can clean your floors without getting stuck on your furniture. We tested seven of iRobot's most promising models for cleaning power, navigation, and the ability to tackle common obstacles. In the end, we found that more money didn’t always buy better results.  .... " 

Task Journey Maps of the Smart Home

Robotic vacuum activity maps of the home.   In Technology Review.  Some fascinating views that tell you about smart home complexity, and even other applications of simple ideas.   A kind of Journey to task completion mapping?

" .... The home robotics company Neato makes vacuums that do much the same thing as their better-known counterparts, iRobot's Roombas. But today the company announced a new feature that may give them an edge: Neato's newest vacuum, the D7, will build maps of its surroundings that users can then interact with. ... " 

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. .... " 

Alexa and Roomba in the Smart Home

We worked with the Roomba concept.  Though I liked the idea, never found it useful enough to add to our smart home .... Will it be more useful enough when voice controlled?

With Alexa integration and mapping, iRobot aims to make Roomba the center of the smart home by Brian Heater

" ... iRobot CEO Colin Angle has been repeating for some time now that the next step in the evolution of the company’s hit Roomba vacuum is becoming a connective tissue for the smart home. This morning’s announcement from the company takes it a couple of steps closer to that dream, introducing Alexa voice integration and advances to the robotic vacuum’s mapping system that lay the groundwork for future smart home upgrades.

“Roombas are already becoming one of the commonly found connected devices in the home,” Angle tells TechCrunch. “The popularity of the Roomba has made it a very powerful ambassador for connected devices, but its ability to organize physical information in the home is making it a central player in allowing homes to be more intelligent. You need to be aware of where things are in order to have a home do the right thing without programming it.” .... " 

Smart Home Vacuum

In Spectrum IEEE: Extensive technical and practical review of the Neato Botvac.   A robotic vacuuming solution for the home.  We studied how narrowly focused robotics could be delivered to the home and the potential for onboard cleaning products. A key application for smart home robotics.   Even this area, the solutions have not flourished.

Robotic Vacuum has Security Functions

In Engadget:  Was waiting for some of these kinds of obvious multitasking capabilities.    Only way we will see their more general home use.

Smarter Roomba for the Home

We followed iRobot's work for years, since we were fundamentally interested in how consumers did housework, and if we could participate in that journey.   Could we provide consumables?  Say for the Roomba's Scooba brother?   They were featured in our smart homes and innovation efforts.  That led me to look more closely at 'consumer robotics' worldwide.  Still no major breakthrough in home friendly robot butlers or house cleaners, but at least the Roomba is getting smarter.  But what does that mean?  Will they be able to climb up and do windows or ceilings or dishes anytime soon? Roomba has an App now.  How will it integrate with the Smart Home IOT?

" ... Sure, it's very expensive, but that's par for the course for most new Roombas. What's most intriguing about the Roomba 980 is how it fundamentally changes the way robotic vacuums work. Ideally, all of its sensors means you won't have to run around the house clearing your floors of obstacles, or sweep up any stray dirt that Roomba may have missed. And if it's too rich for your blood, take solace in the fact that it may drive down the price of the brushless Roomba 880, as well as older models ... " 

Future of the Home Robot

In Wired: Colin Angle of iRobot on the future of the Roomba.  Recognizing things and making maps of our world.  Continue to be interested in how robotics will work with us in our day to day lives.    And how an internet of things will connect with them.

Easier to use Drones

Continued advances in interfaces may yet crowd the skies with unintended consequences.   " ... The Roomba's Inventor Launches What Might Be The Easiest-To-Use Drone Yet ... Even the worst pilot can get this flying robot to perform. ... "   In Fastcoexist.

Advances in Domestic Robotics

Will this be the era of robots beyond the Roomba?   Cooperating with both us and our smart homes?  Still have not seen real evidence.  In the Daily Mail.

Cheap Hack-able Roomba

In Mashable: " ... iRobot builds a vacuum-free Roomba for students to hack ... "     This is a successor to the iRobot Create, which we used to experiment with simple robotic demonstration ideas. This version has no vacuum, so its simpler, cheaper.  Can be hacked for experimentation with algorithms in Python, for which there is a experimenters community.

Google and Robotics: iRobots view

In Mashable:  Notably Google did not buy probably the best known MIT robotics spin off: iRobot. What is iRobot's take on that?  " ... Why iRobot's CEO Welcomes Our New Google Robot Overlords ... If you were a founder in any industry where Google just snapped up eight of your competitors, and you wanted to remain in that business, you might expect to feel a little nervous. Not Colin Angle. ... 
Angle (pictured above) is the founder and CEO of iRobot, the company that makes the Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaner, its cousin the Scoomba, and many more besides. And he is so far beyond thrilled that Google is showing such an interest in the market, he's actively rooting for the big guys.... " 

Robotic Cleaning

In IEEE Spectrum:  As might be expected we avidly explored the future of cleaning.  In particular we examined robotic approaches. Watching development and commercialization of methods like the Roomba.  In particular it is quite difficult to clean multiple, irregular surfaces in home environments.  Here is a new idea, using multiple small robotic motes.   Just an early  concept for now, but interesting to consider the idea in outline.   " ... Mab is a self cleaning system consisting of 908 robots which clean the surface of a  floor with a drop touching and trapping the dirt particles on the floor. These robots also fulfill the task of feeding the system energy by capturing solar energy in its wings. The second component of the Mab is the core, which the robots returns to, and this central part handles multiple tasks: it generates the mixture of water with an additive that gives higher surface tension and a pleasant odor to the water; it is controlling the robot based on information they are providing of the environment; receiving contaminated droplets and filters it to remove the dirt from the water, saving the highest percentage possible and cleans its walking surfaces. ... " 

Nanotech Motors

In Foresight: A good place to follow progress in the nanotech space.   A visual of a nanotech motor that might be used in some spectacular ways:  " ... Near-term application of artificial molecular motors based on this work are not difficult to imagine, such as in drug delivery or gene delivery for nanomedicine. Could motors like these be useful for more complicated molecular machine systems, such as running pulleys using DNA cables to transport components in primitive molecular manufacturing systems? .. " 

I have suggested in the past that once the physical nano systems are possible, we will need analytics to use as sensors and control systems to direct them.   I am reminded of the 'brute force' control systems of the Roomba.  We will likely need to do better than that.