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Neato XV-11 robot vacuum gets its very own open source LIDAR hack
There's nothing like a little bounty to light a fire under a group of open source fanatics, is there? We saw this principle applied recently when Adafruit offered up cold, hard cash for an Open Source Kinect driver, and now one enterprising reader over at robotbox.net has gone and hacked the LIDAR unit on a Neato XV-11 robot vacuum -- and won $401 for the effort. What's this mean to you? Well, the gentleman (who goes by the nom de hack Hash79) can now read data sent from the optical ranging hardware on the vacuum to a PC. There has been a pretty enthusiastic group of hackers surrounding the device for a while now and now with a little hard work (and a $399 autonomous robot vacuum) you too can have a 360 degree scanning LIDAR with one degree accuracy and a 10Hz refresh rate. Pretty sweet, right? Video after the break.
TUAW's Daily App: Home 3D
Lest you think that all we'll be spotlighting in this space is games, here's an interesting app meant for anyone thinking about adding a couch to that living room or putting an extra bed in the back bedroom. Home 3D is an "architecture and interior design app" that allows you to model out your home in 3D, including doors and windows on a floor plan, wallpaper, and furniture, allowing you to test out your choices on your device first before tearing out a wall or repainting a room. Having all of this functionality on your iPhone or iPad is impressive (and the best home design software costs a lot more than this one -- US$3.99 for the iPhone and $4.99 for the iPad), but Home 3D does it with an impressive interface and a surprising number of features. You can use a color picker and choose from a set of pre-loaded furniture, buy more with in-app purchases, or try creating your own models or even using the iPhone's camera for textures. It's not perfect -- if you want to do serious home design, you'll probably have to go for something a little more dedicated on the desktop. But just for moving some furniture around, or maybe seeing what a room might look like with a different color of paint, Home 3D does the trick.
Neato's XV-11 robot vacuum gets the hands-on treatment
We had lots of fun playing with Neato's XV-11 robot sweeper -- probably as much fun as you can have watching something quietly vacuum a few M&Ms off of a carpet. Of course, the selling point is the company's Room Positioning System, which employs sensors to map the floor space (as opposed to merely bumping off walks). They are clearly gunning for Roomba's market share here -- but something tells me the latter company isn't worried. After all, we've never seen the XV-11 kill a viper. %Gallery-81901%
Neato's XV-11 robot vacuum maps out your floor for efficiency, doesn't ask for weekends off
Heads-up, Roomba -- your worst nightmare just waltzed into this space we like to call "reality," and it looks fully capable of giving your dirt sucking powers a run for their money. Neato Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup, has just come clean with its very first home service product: the XV-11 robotic vacuum cleaner. The device is the first to sport the company's own Room Positioning System, which utilizes an array of sensors to "intelligently map the entire floor space to choose the most effective path to clean the whole room, avoiding most obstacles other robots can only detect by impact." It's engineered to be used daily, whisking away dirt as you mind your own business and take even the smallest things in life for granted. We're told that it'll be cleaning up debris at CES early next month, though consumers at large won't be able to snag one until February when it hits shelves for $399. Video's just past the break. %Gallery-80422%
