The International Consumer Electronics Show seems the place to be --sorry I'm missing it.
Most interesting is the introduction of the Deebot D76. It is a two vacuum system in which a robotic vac with sophisticated navigation sensors goes about the home to sweep and returns to a docking station to recharge and/or empty itself. Empty is managed by a second handheld size bagless vacuum that stacks atop the docking station. This means less actual hands-on emptying of the robotic vacuum. Better yet the the vac that attaches to the dock is removable and can be used, per the attac hments I saw in the video, for above the floor duty. This is not like watching the Wright brother's first flight -- don't ask me how I know -- but it feels a little like a glimpse at the historic. Whether "historic" or not, the proposed price is $600.00.
Though I still maintain that robotic vacs remain at best glorified carpet sweepers, I do think a multi-purpose cleaning device like this -- if it lives up to claim -- could be a very useful tool not only for busy household but for our elders and those in the disabled community.
Bare flooring should be a snap for it to keep but also letting this device run on its own every other day or so might help keep what's just surface debris and dirt from getting ground into carpeting and lessen the need and time for vacuuming with a full-sized machine. You could vacuum with your full size machine maybe once a week and actually get away with something.
Just to mention, this is not the the only self-emptying robotic vac concept. As you will see, per the article's URL which follows, the idea has a couple of other spins on it by iRobot and Samsung but they don't provide for working above the floor. Second issue is that, yes, it's made in China. I don't know quite what to make of that except that I've heard at this point we sort of have to go with the flow -- Mainland, China presently owns about $1134.1 billion dollars of our national debt and Japan has about $901 billion. So what are we gonna tell 'em -- Go get lost?
Here's the link: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/robot-vacuums-that-empty-themselves
Venson
PS -- Please forgive the jump in type-size. Don't know how I did that.
This message was modified Jan 17, 2012 by Venson
