They’ve started attaching arms to robot vacuum cleaners, so we’re closer to either getting our own R2D2 or being strangled in our sleep.
I was an early Roomba user back in the early 2000s. He sucked, and not the way he should have: he sucked up dirt.
The first Roomba didn’t assemble much. It collided with everything else. He couldn’t find his charging station. It was deafeningly loud. Cleaning the undercarriage took longer than it would have taken to vacuum the house myself.
I stopped using it pretty quickly and haven’t bought another robot vacuum since, but for some reason the robotic dirt-picking technology continued on without me. Instead of weird, chunky plastic discs that patrol your home and sweep up trash, the future of robot vacuum cleaners now includes limbs.
As The Verge brought to my attention, several companies are busy installing mechanical arms on their robot vacuum cleaners. Robocks’ Saros Z70 features a “foldable five-axis mechanical arm” that allows it to “move obstacles out of your way.”
I’m a little dubious about what it’s capable of, mainly because the trailer (you can see it below) is entirely CGI, including a computer-generated cat that the robot encounters. I’m also a little wary of the “mechanical arm that sees and thinks” thing. What exactly is he thinking about? “Oh, that slipper is getting in the way of the crumbs I have to sweep up, let me move it to a place next to the dresser.” Or he thinks: “I’m so tired of cleaning up after these pigs that don’t even bother me with slippers, so I’m going to use my newly invented hand to strangle them in their sleep.”
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This isn’t the only robot vacuum cleaner with limbs. The Dreame X50 Ultra robot vacuum cleaner has small legs, so when it becomes aware of itself and gets tired of picking up dirt, it can chase you up the stairs and kick you to death.
No, I’m not exaggerating: it’s called the ProLeap™ system, and it allows the robot to climb stairs. (Those steps may only be 2.36 inches tall, but that’s just the beginning if they use the word “jump”. In a few years, this thing will be parkour everywhere.)
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Where are all these robotic limbs going? Well, here in America, the ideal vacuum cleaner could use its robotic arm to hold a gun and shoot at the front door every time someone approaches it. If we manage to survive further into the future, it’s possible that these vacuum cleaners will one day become sentient robotic companions like R2D2 (while they’re still picking up our dirt).
As for me, I will not buy another Roomba, no matter how many arms and legs it has. I have a broom. It works great and will never hit or kick me.