Evolving home-cleaning robots
In September 2005, iRobot introduced a second home robot, the Scooba ($399.99), to wash floors. "There are a lot of convenience-type products on the market that do a great job at quick pick-up, but they don't do as good a job of scrubbing your floor," says Dussault. "We created a robot that has two separate tanks and a four-stage process that picks up loose debris, lays down a cleaning solution, scrubs the floor, and then picks up the dirty water."
The Dirt Dog ($150), launched in September 2006, is iRobot's third specialized home cleaning robot. It's the tough workhorse of the iRobot trio, made for heavy-duty cleaning, from picking up nuts and bolts on the garage floor to clearing leaves off your front porch.
What's in the future for home robots?
"When we look at tasks that are dull, dirty or dangerous around the home, that's what we look to work on," says Dussault. You might not consider housework to be potentially dangerous work but if you're living with physical disabilities, vacuuming and washing the floors can pose some risk. Going high-tech with cleaning may allow some people to live more independently for a longer period of time.
iRobot: maid or pet?
The Roomba doesn't look anything like the Jetson's Rosie, but that hasn't stopped people from humanizing their robots by naming them. While Rosie is the most popular name, some people have chosen very unique names for their robots: Chicken, Spot, Bubba, Roomie, Rug Bug, Hal, and Robbi.
According to Dussault, research has shown that people tend to assign a gender to their home robot -- preferring the "other" gender. Males tend to refer to their home robots as "she", while women think of their robots as men.
Where to find cleaning robots
You can buy iRobot's home robots at www.irobot.com, Canadian Tire, and Linens N Things. Models start at $150 and prices increase according to model type and features. For other types of service robots, check out Probotics' lawn-mowing Robomower ($1,589) or their pool-cleaning Aquabot ($819) at www.probotics.com.
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