Sometimes, our smart devices aren’t quite as smart as they make themselves out to be. They’ll misinterpret what you say, forget what you told them yesterday, or otherwise fail to complete a task that a human could do. But here to begin making amends for these less than clever machines is Neato Robotics, who has recently announced a free update to its D7 Connected robot vacuum. As of this week, owners of this smart vacuum will have access to two new features – Multiple Floor Plan Mapping and Quick Boost charging. Both of these new capabilities show off the possibilities associated with memory in a machine.
For starters, Multiple Floor Plan Mapping allows the Neato D7 to remember its previous routes and maps of your home so that it doesn’t have to start from scratch every time it begins its cleaning routine. Using its spinning lidar sensor, the robot vacuum will create a visual representation of the area it has vacuumed at the end of every cycle. With this new feature, each of those maps will begin to look the same. From now on, you can actually interact with these charts, literally marking off areas that you don’t want the robot to visit the next time it cleans. And with its newfound memory, you’ll only have to tell it “no” once.
Then, there’s the Quick Boost Charging option. Seeing as the Neato D7 is able to clean different surfaces throughout your home, it’s likely that it will require a recharge at some point in order to finish the job as effectively as it started. With the new Neato Quick Boost charging, your vacuum will determine exactly how much juice it needs to finish cleaning mid-cycle – it will return to its home base to recharge, and when it’s ready, finish vacuuming the rest of your home. This means that the D7 will know not only where it’s already cleaned, but where it has yet to clean. How does it know this? Its memorized maps, of course.
Other vacuums can similarly realize when they’re low on power, but generally speaking, are unaware as to what spots they have left, which often means quite a bit of redundancy. Not so with the D7.
Of course, these sorts of features come with quite a hefty price tag, but if you’re willing to pay to never vacuum again, then the Neato D7 may just be the last vacuum you’ll ever want to buy.
