The New Roomba Actually Maps Where It's Cleaned

The results end up looking a lot like graph-paper Dungeons and Dragons.

The Roomba 980 is the latest iteration of iRobot's circular cleaning robot. While it essentially functions in much the same way as previous Roombas, the 980 is different in one big way: it finally, actually makes a map of where it's cleaned.

This innovation comes courtesy of the Roomba 980's new onboard camera, which takes rudimentary footage to keep track of objects so it knows where it's going and where it's been. This map is really rather simple, but it's in stark contrast to previous Roombas which just zoomed about cleaning at random and hoping for the best. The idea was that the Roomba would make enough rounds to ensure clean floors, but now it actually knows when it's done so.

The new Roomba deletes the map and any footage around 90 minutes after its done using them so that there's no potential privacy concerns. Even so, the $900 required to own one of the little 'bots is maybe a bit steep for folks that just want floors that are reliably cleaned.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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