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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.
