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I was an early adopter of the Roomba back in the early 2000s. It sucked, and not in the way it was supposed to suck: up dirt.
The first Roomba barely picked up anything. It bumped into everything else. It couldn’t find its charging station. It was deafeningly loud. Cleaning its undercarriage took more time than it would have taken to just run a vacuum around the house myself.
I stopped using it pretty quickly and haven’t bought another robot vacuum since, but for some reason robotic dirt-collection technology has continued on without me. Instead of just weird chunky plastic discs that patrol your house while sweeping up filth, the future of robotic vacuums now includes limbs.
Brought to my attention by The Verge, several companies are busy grafting mechanical arms onto their robot vacuums. Robocks’ Saros Z70 model has a “foldable five-axis mechanical arm” to “move obstacles out of the way.”
I’m a bit dubious of what it claims to be able to do, mostly because the trailer (you can see it below) is entirely CG, including a computer generated cat the robot encounters. I’m also a bit wary about a “mechanical arm that sees and thinks.” What is it thinking, exactly? “Oh, here’s a slipper in the way of the crumbs I’m supposed to be sweeping up, let me move it to its spot next to the dresser.” Or is it thinking “I am so sick of cleaning up after these pigs who can’t even keep their slippers out of my way, so I’m gonna use my newly-invented arm to strangle them in their sleep.”
That’s not the only robot vacuum with limbs. The Dreame X50 Ultra Robot Vacuum has little legs, so when it becomes self-aware and weary of collecting your filth it can chase you up a set of stairs and kick you to death.
No, I’m not overreacting: it’s called a “ProLeap™” system and it lets the robot climb steps. (Those steps can only be only 2.36 inches tall, but this is just the start if they’re using the word “leap.” That thing is gonna be parkouring all over the place in a few years.)
Where are all these robotic limbs leading? Well, here in America, the ideal vacuum cleaner would be able to use its robotic arm to hold a gun and fire wildly at the front door anytime someone approaches it. If we manage to survive further into the future, it’s possible these vacuums will someday become sentient robotic companions like R2D2 (as long as they still pick up our dirt).
As for me, I’m not buying another Roomba no matter how many arms and legs it has. I’ve got a broom. It works just fine, and it’ll never kick or punch me.
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Kurt Indovina
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