Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Smart Home
  3. News

Trifo’s Lucy robot vacuum won’t run over poop, doubles as a security system

Alina Bradford
By

It’s 2020, so it’s about time robots started becoming more useful additions to our home. It looks like one particular robot is going to fulfill some of our futuristic fantasies. Trifo, a home robotics company, unveiled its latest robot on Thursday, January 2. Its name is Lucy and its basically a super-smart robot vacuum and a security system. Lucy will be strutting its stuff at CES 2020, though there’s no word as of yet of when the robot will be available for purchase.

Lucy vacuum robot top
Image used with permission by copyright holder

“Revenue for smart home products globally will grow to $28.4 billion in 2020, up 54% from $18.5 billion in 2018, and the feature set of these devices continues to improve,” Trifo founder and CEO Zhe Zhang said in a statement. “Lucy reflects the evolution of our products from robot vacuums to AIoT-enabled home robots that can assist with a wide range of features that help people with their life and work.”

Recommended Videos

Lucy comes with two cameras that provide day and night surveillance. The day camera provides 1080P HDR video quality that compares with dedicated security cameras. The cleaning/security robot can also recognize and divide rooms automatically with advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. “In one example, if she sees a bed in a room, she will understand and label it a bedroom,” Trifo said in a press release. “Her family can designate cleaning areas through the Trifo Home App. Lucy is also Alexa-enabled and follows instructions to clean or not clean zones with ‘no-go’ lines.”

Related

Maybe one of the most exciting features Lucy has to offer is how the robot can determine what an object is and avoid it without bumping into it first using proprietary 3D geometry and 3D semantics algorithms. If you’ve ever had a robot vacuum swirl a clump of pet poop all over the carpet, you know how useful this feature can be. This also means you won’t need to wrestle a wayward sock out of the vacuum.

Sometimes advanced smart home devices like these load up on features, but forget the basics. Surveillance and advanced A.I. are great, but is it going to suck up all the crud on your floor or die after 30 minutes? It looks like Trifo covered all the bases. Lucy has 3,000 Pa suction that will take care of even dirtier floors and a 5,200 mAh battery will keep her powered up to 120 minutes.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Alina Bradford
Alina Bradford
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Alina Bradford has been a tech, lifestyle and science writer for more than 20 years. Her work is read by millions each month…
The best robot vacuums under $200

Robot vacuums make it so you have one less chore to do each day. Instead of lugging out a cumbersome upright vacuum and pushing it all over every area of your floor, you can simply press a button or ask Alexa or Google Home to start your robot. While robot vacuums don’t necessarily eliminate the need for an upright vacuum, they do reduce the frequency of required upright vacuum sessions, making them a periodic chore instead of a regular task.

When it comes to purchasing a robot vacuum, one of the biggest deterrents is price. It wasn’t too long ago when you’d be forced to pay $500 or more for a good robot vacuum. These gadgets have become more popular as they have added features you probably didn't know they could do, and more competition has entered the market, so the price has drastically declined. We’ve gathered our picks for the best robot vacuums you can buy for $200 or less.

Read more
7 things you didn’t know robot vacuums could do
iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum.

Smart vacuum cleaners like the iRobot Roomba i7+ or the Roborock S6 MaxV are best known for their ability to automatically clean your home, but did you realize that robot vacuums can do much more than that? Yes, the expectation to clean our homes is there. However, you may be surprised by the technology packed into today's bots.

Depending on the model, your robot vacuum could be jam-packed with other features that give it utility far beyond a cleaning appliance. Here are seven things you didn't know robot vacuums could do.
Robot vacuums can spot clean specific areas
While a whole-room cleaning is recommended at least once a week, you might only have a specific place that's dirty. For example, maybe you had rice for dinner one night and there are little grains all around the kitchen table. The iRobot Roomba i7+ is just one of the many that can do this.

Read more
Robot vacuum with triple lidar system has eyes to help it avoid poop
robot vacuum uses triple lidar avoid dog poop 360 s10

Robot vacuums are supposed to help clean your home, not dirty it up in a catastrophic way. That's why tales of robot vacuums running over poop and smearing it across the floor create so much schadenfreude -- while it's hilarious to hear about, it's not so much fun when it happens to you. The 360 Smart Life Robot Vacuum Cleaner has eyes to help it detect such messes and obstacles before there are any mishaps.

How, exactly? Does it have a built-in poop sensor? Not really -- but it does use a triple light detection and ranging (lidar) system to better identify slim objects on the ground in front of it, including pet-induced Tootsie Rolls. Most modern robot vacuums use only a single sensor, which gives them something of a "2D" view. While they are aware of potential objects in their path, the devices do not receive enough information to judge its size.

Read more