I’ve long complained that while Roombas are wonderful in ways coarse and subtle, they’re not perfect because they don’t empty themselves. That’s a particular problem with the hardwood-scrubbing, liquid-using Scoobas, but it’s also an imperfection with the regular robot vacuums.
The good news is that at CES we saw a couple of robot vacuums from Asia that come with docking stations capable of emptying the dust bins automatically. These are not the first robot vacuums to have the self-emptying dustbin feature. We’ve already seen one German vacuum that costs US $1,300 that can do this, and iRobot has had a patent on the books for a few years now, though the company hasn’t made any announcements. So it’s nice to see this feature, which we’ve been looking for since, well, forever, moving closer to becoming a mainstream option for consumers.
There are longer debates to be had about household robots: what they are, what they do, how we relate to them, etc. People personalize their robots in ways that they don’t personalize other household appliances, probably because there’s something about motion that we link with being alive (people name robots and cars, but not dishwashers and tables). This post does a nice job of untangling a bunch of distinctions, including the white color/blue color divide:
We can call those Blue Collar Robots. Cleaning, cooking, maintenance, security, etc. They take on jobs that people must do, but hate doing, don’t want to do, or simply can’t… And then there is a White Collar Robot – one that helps us do things we love doing. I am most fascinated by this breed. Satisfying curiosity, being creative, socializing, studying, having fun – those sorts of activities are strictly human and therefore only human-centric robots can actively participate and enhance our experiences.
That still doesn’t explain why blue color robots like robot vacuums seem to be so disruptive. People get dumbly entranced by their first Roombas, following them around the house and watching them clean. Something subtly different happens when interacting with toy robots. That can be awesome but it may not be qualitatively different from interacting with a pet or a person. Putting aside the technological sophistication needed to create a genuinely responsive mechanical companion, the great science fiction stories about robot/human friendships work precisely because the relationship is so familiar. They fit into frameworks we already have.
That’s not what’s happening with blue color robots. Part of the fascination with robot vacuum, for instance, comes from them relieving us of chores we implicitly assumed we’d be doing routinely, forever. They disrupt habits we didn’t even acknowledge were habits. With a dishwasher you’re still “doing the dishes,” just in a different way. Ditto for “doing laundry” in a washing machine. But a robot vacuum really does “do the vacuuming” for you. It’s a distinction that makes a lived difference, which is why so many people experience it that way.
And now they might even be able to clean themselves. Videos:
Photo:
* IEEE Spectrum
References:
* Robot Vacuums That Empty Themselves [IEEE Spectrum]
* The Cute Yellow Thin Wedge Of The Coming Robot Wars [Video] [Icon Index Symbol]
* Robbie (short story) [Wikipedia]
* What Is a Household Robot? [IEEE Spectrum]
