Better Decisions Through Data.
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- There’s an app for this Robotic Vac! Photo (C) Acculation
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- CES spectators robotic vacs. Photo: (C) Acculation
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- The airborne dust sensor plugs into a wall socket, shown above the robot here. Photo: (C) Acculation
The Internet of Things comes to vacuum cleaners at CES
The Internet of Things was big at CES this year so we went looking for appliance manufacturers that had incorporated a dust sensor (and Internet connection!) into their appliances.
We’re apparently a little ahead bit of the pack on this, as most exhibitors in this space weren’t quite thinking along these lines yet. (There were “smart vent hoods” that might, or might not, incorporate a dust sensor. These allow restaurants to save energy, and we might do a future post on them [updated: link].)
One company that was thinking along these lines was Moneual, that makes a robotic vacuum competitor to the iRobot Roomba that we review below.
The exhibit heavily touted that the Moneual was “a hybrid” dry and mop robotic vacuum. This is a brilliant marketing move, and it makes sense that the same robot vacuum should be able to also mop. (If you wanted both functionalities from iRobot you’d have to buy two separate robots.) That being said, it looks like the mop is just an attachment that was added, perhaps almost as an afterthought.
Where Moneual has innovated is in the addition of an iPhone app that will report how much dirt the Moneual has picked up on each cleaning. This will let you optimize your cleaning schedule. No doubt iRobot will be adding a feature like this (and an Internet connection) to their robots in the future. (It looks like this is a new feature that Moneual announced at CES; the iPhone app does not appear available for the Moneual model available off Amazon.)
New vacuums with Airborne Dust Sensors demonstrated at CES
What got our attention is the airborne dust sensor (shown in the photo; also not yet available in the model on Amazon). This ranks airborne dust on a proprietary scale from 1-99, and, according to the Moneual rep we spoke with at CES, will turn on the vacuum if the air becomes to dusty.
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So, if I understand correctly, your vacuum will monitor how much dirt it picks up from the floor? Do you end up with a spreadsheet to optimize the frequency of vacuuming? How incredibly modern!
All of the robotic vacs we mention have these dirt sensors (and the Moneual takes it a step further by trying to monitor dirt in the air and automatically determining when to start the vac, although we were dubious about how well this worked).
We see you run an on-line vacuum review site, so are surprised you weren’t aware that dirt sensors in robotic vacs have been around for a very long time. (And, as we talk about in this article, have started to get added to traditionally, non-robotic vacs.)
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The Roomba has had various dirt sensors for decades. The original was an ultrasonic sensor that detected the sound of dirt as it entered the dustbin. This adjusted the behavior of the robot. If it saw a lot of dirt entering the dustbin over a certain area, it would give that area more attention. This was a very important feature of the higher-end Roombas (the cheapest base Roombas did offer the ultrasonic sensor, but it has been part of the “early” Roomba Discovery SE etc which have been available before 2005). The more modern Roombas have even added additional sensors to help the on-board algorithms recognize areas that are dirty and also help it determine when it is done cleaning.
So having the on-board vacuum algorithmics monitor the dirt coming in (and even the dust in the air) is serious business, and vacuum doesn’t work correctly without it. We were also amused by the newer ability of these vacs to offer the ability for the user to monitor the amount of dirt vacuumed (e.g., via the Moneual’s app, which the Roomba has now duplicated). With the ability to tap into the on-line cameras on these vacs, and the addition of a direct or indirect Internet connection (which the older Roomba did not have), there are some Internet of Things security concerns, unfortunately. There is the possibility Skynet could hack into an Internet-connected vac (or your Internet-connected toilet) someday.