There were a lot of innovations in robotic vacuum cleaners at CES this year, from arms and legs to extendable mops, moving towers and new navigation systems.
As the industry moves forward in its search for the best way to clean our floors, it can be difficult to see the fit despite all the hype. I spent the last week in Las Vegas with our robot friends to find out how much they're improving. Here's a look at all the new technology that's emerged and how could Help keep your floors sparkling and clean.
Arms to pick up after you
The main goal of flagship robovacs in recent years has been obstacle avoidance. Adding ai-powered camera navigation systems has helped robots avoid getting stuck in socks, slippers, and toys, but that means they haven't actually cleaned the entire floor.
The solution: add a robotic arm to move objects out of the way. Roborock's Saros Z70 and Dreame's concept vacuum cleaner showed what a robovac can do, with a robotic claw on top.
Both companies say they have software that will allow you to designate where items are placed, allowing the vacuum to clean in a whole new way. Roborock said an area can be designated for the robot to place the things it cleans, and Dreame said its vacuum concept will be able to place specific items in specific places, such as cat toys next to the cat's bed or shoes next to the door. input. However, neither of them demoed their app, so I couldn't see how it works.
The biggest limitation for these arms is weight: Roborock can only pick up light items up to 300 grams; It is currently scheduled for socks, tissues, small wipes, and sandals. Dreame says it will have a capacity of up to 500 grams, meaning it can support shoes (a sneaker up to a men's size 42/9). But only Roborock demonstrated its robot picking up something, and that was just a sock.
Dreame's arm seems more robust. It is larger and thicker with a thicker clip. But I didn't get to touch it. I was able to play with the arm of the Saros Z70 and it felt surprisingly strong, especially for how thin it is.
What the Dreame arm has that the Roborock one doesn't (yet) are accessories. Dreame showed off a small toolbox that stored two brushes: a sponge for wet dirt and a bristle brush. The idea is that the robot can attach them to its arms and then get into nooks and crannies that the main robot can't. However, I didn't get to see the robot do any of this, so it's all still a concept.
Climbing to new heights
Robovac manufacturers are also adding appendages to the other side of their robots. Both Dreame's concept vacuum cleaner and its new Ultra X50 have two small legs: small appendages that extend from under the body to lift them.
They are not jointed legs; They're just little levers that help propel the robot up a step, and then its forward momentum knocks it over as it passes the step. The benefit here is to navigate high room transitions, not really stairs. So if you have a small passage between your living room and kitchen or a high transition between your bathroom's tile floor and your bedroom's carpet, these robots should be able to move between the two.
This is mainly an extension of the chassis lifting technology we've seen on Roborock, Shark and a few others. The X50 Ultra from Dreame adds greater heights with its technology: up to 6 cm. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like the precursor to climbing the stairs I was hoping for. It looks like that is still several years away and a complete redesign of the chassis is still missing.
More mop
A less flashy trend that emerged at CES was mopping. Ecovacs, Switchbot and Narwal debuted robot vacuums with roller mops that can extend outward to reach baseboards and corners. This is a change from the swing and spin mops that have been popular over the past few years.
Roller mops began to appear in companies such as Eufy Omni S1 Pro and the SwitchBot S10 last year and in my experience they are better than oscillating mops. They have a larger surface area and automatically clean on the fly, so you don't have to return to the base frequently to clean your mops. But current models fail to cover all floors as they cannot reach the edges like most oscillating mops do as they extend from the main body. Hopefully, these new extendable roller mops will solve this problem.
The Ecovac model: the Deebot X8 Pro Omni – also adds a hot water tank to the robot itself, not just the base station. This means that not only can you clean the floors with hot water, but you can also keep the mop clean while it works.
The other innovation at the show that caught my eye was a mop exchange station from Dreame (and its <a target="_blank" href="https://us.mova-tech.com/products/s20-ultra-robot-vacuum?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pmax&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAp4O8BhAkEiwAqv2UqEb4phLqPnw-QbiwUGFpPfHW0nWOFXvJ_DUwwRaFPEdYxpSMKtkZORoCNG4QAvD_BwE”>Mova sub-brand). This allows you to designate specific mop pads for specific rooms. The robot will return to the station and change its pads to use a new pair for the kitchen, for example, after cleaning the bathroom. This can help with concerns about cross contamination. I'm interested in trying this, but my initial impression is that the self-cleaning roller mop is a simpler and more streamlined solution.
Less lidar
The other big robotic navigation trend this year is retractable lidar towers. Lidar has long been the preferred navigation technology for most robot vacuums, but that pesky tower on top can prevent them from getting under low furniture.
The Dreame X50 Ultra, Roborock Saros 10 and Mova V50 Ultra They are all new robots that can knock down your towers to reach more places. However, I will have to test how well they will do when under the bed without their lidar tower.
Lidar is also being complemented by more sensors and artificial intelligence to help robot vacuum cleaners better understand your home. The idea here is a robot that can seamlessly navigate your home and learn about stubborn carpet tassels in the living room, rather than creating no-go zones in the app to make sure it doesn't get derailed.
Roborock introduced new StarSight navigation technology at IFA last year on its Qrevo Slim, which is designed to do exactly that. At CES, the company announced that it will bring a more advanced version of StarSight to its Saros Z70 and Saros 10R.
According to Roborock, StarSight 2.0 Autonomous System abandons traditional Lidar for a dual transmitter <a target="_blank" href="https://globalgpssystems.com/lidar/explore-the-different-types-of-lidar-technology-from-mechanical-to-solid-state-lidar/#:~:text=Solid%2DState%20Lidar%20is%20a,and%20less%20susceptible%20to%20failure.”>Solid state lidar with 3D time-of-flight sensors for distance detection and RGB cameras with ai technology for navigation and maneuvering around obstacles. Roborock says StarSight helps the robot deal with more complex floor plans and houses by using more sensors to power the built-in ai.
While I had a bad experience with the Ecovacs X2 Omni, which used solid-state lidar, I've been testing the Qrevo Slim for a while and it's been largely reliable. That's why I'm excited to try the more advanced version.
Ultimately, the goal of all these innovations is better floor cleaning with less intervention on our part. All I want is a robot vacuum cleaner that can reliably and effectively reach every inch of my floor without me having to tidy it up before it works or having to rescue it from under a chair leg. From what I saw at CES this week, we're getting a lot closer to that.
