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Turn your Roomba's travels into 'Doom' maps
Game developer Rich Whitehouse has found a rather unusual way to celebrate Doom's 25th anniversary: make your robot vacuum pay tribute. The industry veteran has developed a script for the game data conversion tool Noesis that translates the floor maps from Roombas to playable maps for the original Doom -- yes, of course it's called Doomba. You'll have to specifically record the robot's journeys for this to work (you can merge files if the run is interrupted), but it can otherwise whip up a hellish version of your home with minimal effort.
Now Roombas check in with 'Clean Map' reports to your phone
How do you know if your Roomba has cleaned every inch of your floor? If you have one of the wirelessly connected series 900 Roombas, you'll start getting "Clean Map" reports through the iRobot Home app for Android and iOS. The machines now map the parts of your home they've cleaned by combining adaptive navigation with visual localization. You'll get those maps as part of the new reports, along with how much time the Roomba spent vacuuming and what the dirtiest parts of your house are. The app can now also send you push notifications on the robot's cleaning status.
Roomba 980 review: iRobot's best vacuum yet, but too pricey for most
It's 2015 and I'm still waiting for Rosie the Robot, or some sort of equivalent home bot, to clean my home. We're probably years away from a Jetsons-like future, but it's easy to forget that iRobot's Roomba has already been around for over 13 years now, steadily getting better at doing your dirty work. Now with the new Roomba 980, iRobot is making its vacuum-cleaning bot smarter than ever before -- so much so that it's calling the 980 the most important Roomba since it first debuted in 2002. It has a camera and advanced localization technology that allows it to see obstacles and map your floors, and for the first time, it's also wirelessly connected and works together with a mobile app. Most importantly, it finally rid my carpets of cat hair. The 980 is the best Roomba yet, plain and simple. Unfortunately, its high cost of $900 puts it out of reach for most people.
Hands-on with the smarter, WiFi-equipped Roomba 980
By iRobot's own admission, the Roomba 980 is its most important consumer product since the launch of its first vacuum bot in 2002. It builds upon the innovative brush-less design of the Roomba 880, but adds a whole load of new gear to make it a better robot. It can actually map your floors and make sure it thoroughly cleans your entire house. And it also marks iRobot's entry into the smart home arena -- the Roomba 980 works with the company's new "HOME" app, which allows you to control and monitor it from anywhere in the world. But like every new Roomba, it's pretty pricy at $899. Is it worth it?
iRobot's cloud-connected Roomba 980 is smart enough to map floors
Two years ago, iRobot got rid of bristles with the Roomba 880. Now, the company is making its iconic vacuum cleaning robot even smarter with the Roomba 980, which it claims is the first Roomba to "combine adaptive navigation with visual localization." Translation? It's a heckuva lot smarter than past Roomba's, so much so that it can map and clean an entire floor on its own. That's something iRobot CTO Paolo Pirjanian hinted at when we spoke to him at CES -- he was far more intrigued by bots that could understand and interact with your home more than drones. The 980 is also the first Roomba that's connected to the cloud, allowing you to control it from iRobot's new "HOME" app. That lets you kick off Roomba cleanings from anywhere, as well as manage your vacuum bot's schedule. The Roomba 980 hits the US and Canada for $899 starting on September 17.
