If you have smart devices in your home, odds are pretty good one of those devices is from iRobot or Google. The two companies know how to add functionality to your home, and now they want to get even smarter about it. The Roomba maker and search giant are teaming up to find ways that spatial context can improve the functionality of Google’s smart home suite and the overall smart home ecosystem.
The companies announced that they are working together to create new integrations between their platforms, though so far details are sparse. What we do know is iRobot and Google want to use the information gathered by their respective devices to better understand a user’s home. As an example, the companies suggest that spatial awareness from a Roomba could help simplify smart home setups and enable new automated processes.
“iRobot is delivering products that help people keep a cleaner and smarter home,” Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot, said in a statement. “Robots with mapping and spatial awareness capabilities will play an important role in allowing other smart devices in the home to more seamlessly work together. We’re looking forward to working with Google to explore new ways to enable a more thoughtful home.”
Michele Turner, director of Smart Home Ecosystem at Google, added: “Over the past year, we’ve been working hard to make it easier to control all the devices and appliances in your home with the Google Assistant with just your voice. We’re excited to be exploring with iRobot how its unique spatial awareness technology can work with the Assistant to offer customers a more intuitive and personalized experience in their homes.”
This isn’t the first time Google and iRobot have worked together. The iRobot Roomba i7+ dropped this year with the company’s Imprint Smart Mapping feature, which allows the cleaning bot to remember multiple floor plans and room names. Using that capability, owners of the Roomba i7+ can issue commands via Google Assistant to send the bot off to clean specific areas. Just name the room you want the Roomba to visit and it will make its way over and make sure the floor is clean as can be.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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With AI progressing so fast, it's only a matter of time before we start getting AI companions like the ones we used to see in movies like R2-D2, Wall-E, or Baymax. Now, Singapore-based OKA Technology has unveiled Mori, a cute little AI companion that looks less like a conventional home robot and more like someone turned the Pokémon Foongus into a table lamp.
Mori isn't meant to clean your house or control your smart home, but to serve as what OKA calls a "Nature Companion." It uses subtle movements, warm lighting, nature-inspired sounds, and small reactions to make its presence around the house feel calming rather than distracting. Mori can sit quietly while you read, sway along to music, welcome you when you enter a room, or encourage you to slow down for a moment without requiring a screen or a conversation.
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