Roomba to Rule the Smart Home
iRobot CEO Colin Angle says mapping data generated by the company’s robotic cleaners will finally make our homes intelligent.
By Elizabeth Woyke
Smart homes are one of those technology ideas that never seem to catch on, despite the efforts of technology heavyweights like Amazon and Google parent Alphabet. Could Roomba, the popular robotic vacuum cleaner, be the missing link that finally makes home automation useful and convenient?
That’s what Roomba maker iRobot claims. The key technology isn’t the device’s dirt-sucking aptitude, but its ability to create navigational maps of people’s homes through an onboard camera, sensors, and software. The company added the feature to its more expensive models in 2015 so the robots could clean more efficiently, and it has been refined since. Soon Roombas will be able to recognize which rooms they’re in and identify large objects located in those rooms, says iRobot CEO Colin Angle. That “spatial understanding” will transform smart homes from “a frustrating morass of fractured devices” into cohesive systems that automatically adjust to fit their owners’ preferences, he says. Angle spoke to MIT Technology Review about his smart-home concept, the types of robots iRobot might release next, and how the company will handle…
