Roomba's iRobot thinks of a "true" smart home concept

"Current smart homes are just devices connected to the internet. Is it really convenient?" Certainly, you can unlock your house and operate your home appliances with your smartphone, so if you lose your smartphone, you won't be able to enter the house. It's the same even if the battery runs out. It can be said that there are some parts that become inconvenient if they are concentrated on smartphones. That's why Roomba was designed so that "it will automatically clean if you charge it after purchase and turn it on." Connecting to a smartphone is treated as an option. So what exactly is iRobot's smart home vision? "When you stand in front of the door, it recognizes your face and hands and unlocks it. When you go through the front door and enter the living room, the lights turn on automatically. When you sit on the sofa, the TV turns on by itself." An environment where the house can detect movement and people can live normally without doing anything,” explains iRobot's idea. In order to realize iRobot's vision, location information in the house is important. President Hikino said, "If the house itself had information about where and what role the rooms were in, like the 'middle version' of 'Google Street View', it would be closer to a real smart home. and expect. That's where the Roomba comes into play. Roomba is equipped with various sensing devices, so it can know exactly what is in the house. For example, a high-end Roomba will gradually become familiar with the inside of a house as it moves, grasping the positions of refrigerators and sofas and cleaning them thoroughly. "By sharing and collaborating with smart home house builders and platform operators on this collected data, we should be able to move forward toward realizing our vision," said President Hikino. Originally, iRobot was involved in space exploration and exploration of inaccessible spaces, and its strength is its high spatial awareness. President Hikino says, "The smart home concept is only at the conceptual stage. We are considering cooperation with various partners." It seems that there is an idea to utilize it. (BCN, Ryohei Nagumo)