Household robots with arms are coming, iRobot boss says

Household robot may soon have arms to lend a helping hand, but the question is, what would the arms be for and how much should consumers expect to pay? — dpa

Robot vacuum specialist iRobot is preparing for a future with automated household helpers that can use arms to tidy up your home.

"We are at a point where we are beginning to understand the environment in which we operate to the point where we can do something like this," iRobot CEO Colin Angle told dpa.

Even in the industry, however, people are still puzzling over what the task of a first household robot with arms will be, Angle qualified.

Do the laundry? Wash the dishes? Tidy the room before vacuuming?

The key question, he said, is how much consumers would be willing to pay for such an innovation. "If it's US1,000 dollars (RM4136), it could probably be done." If it's a premium of only 50 euros (RM244) on top of a robot vacuum cleaner, on the other hand, it wouldn't.

A robot like this can only succeed if the added value that such a machine brings to users exceeds the cost, Angle believes, but is certain either way that there will be many more types of robots in the near future.

The US company unveiled a new robot vacuum model on Thursday with improved software for smarter features. For example, the new Roomba j7+ vacuum cleaner can avoid cables and earphones lying on the floor thanks to a camera and image recognition.

Anyone with a puppy at home will also welcome the new robot's poo recognition feature. Its software is designed to prevent the robot vacuum from driving into pet droppings and spreading them around the living space.

In order to learn to recognise objects, hundreds of artificial droppings were also moulded and put in front of iRobot, Angle said.

"We have mainly trained with solid droppings, liquid animal droppings are much harder to detect and we have to manage expectations accordingly," iRobot manager Brent Bild said.

At the same time, the robot vacuum will remember any soiled area it has seen and target that one more frequently for cleaning. The device creates its own map of the household and can thus also be instructed via voice assistant Alexa to clean under the kitchen table after breakfast, for example. – dpa