Bringing Home Robotics Into the 21st Century
Back when I was a kid the idea of robots helping around the house was limited to the Jetsons. It was a pipe dream of the future. At around this same time a small startup called ECOVACS ROBOTICS was getting off the ground (or getting ON the ground should I say) with their very first robot vacuum cleaner trundling around making our lives just a little bit easier. The 90s saw a boom of competing brands, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who was brave enough to get one at the time will probably remember their cleaner falling down some stairs or getting wedged under the couch. Even the ones that did manage to lead a peaceful co-existence with the floorspace were prone to missing large swathes of dirty surfaces.
Karen Powell, ANZ Regional Director for ECOVACS ROBOTICS explains these faltering first steps and the impact it had on the consumer mindset regarding them. “When robotic vacuums first launched, they garnered a bit of a negative reputation for circular machines that would bump around your home, damaging furniture, and just generally not being that effective. Furthermore, the necessary slim design of the robots presented multiple challenges when it came to vacuum suction power and what was possible at the time.”
But since those early days advances in robotic AI, digital mapping, suction power, and the rise of smartphones has revolutionised this sector. ECOVACS ROBOTICS has been a part of that story, and has been instrumental in changing the reputation of these handy little devices.
ECOVACS ROBOTICS is quite a new name in New Zealand, landing here in 2021 with the DEEBOT N8 PRO. The rest of the planet, or at least 145 other countries, are already familiar with what ECOVACS ROBOTICS has to offer. They didn’t waste any time setting up shop here to dominate the market. Since their launch in 2021 they’ve launched over eight products into the NZ market. In that same time period they’ve also raked in design and innovation awards around the world. From being consistent reddot design winners year after year since 2019, to being named 2021 & 2022 Top Influential Brand In Asia. That’s what 25 years of R&D and attention to detail looks like.
Current research from ECOVACS ROBOTICS shows that about 82% of Kiwis are interested in taking the dive of letting robots into the home to lend a helping hand. Considering 78% of us are in a futile loop of mopping and vacuuming at least once a week I’m not surprised. When you’re time poor this time adds up tremendously. In fact in the short time they’ve been helping Kiwis ECOVACS ROBOTICS estimates they’ve saved more than 100,000 hours a year in cleaning time. If I were them I’d be waiting on a letter from the government thanking them for boosting the country’s GDP by turning the mopping time into actual productive hours for their customers.
Their latest product, the DEEBOT N10 PLUS, has been called the workhorse for the home. It’s a rugged description which belies its grunt and utility. It has got a huge bang for buck, being a full spec piece of robotics coming in the sub-$1200 price category. It has got a strong suction power of 4300Pa and five hours of charge, and its auto-empty station can handle two months worth of dust. It also uses this station to do automatic battery recharges and water refills, so it’s always ready to set off for its preset routine cleans. It requires the water refill because it can mop and vacuum at the same time.
With advanced TrueMapping navigation technology it may as well be considered self aware at this point. It takes a full scan of your house, making a full floor plan so it knows where everything is, and where they haven’t been yet. This helps them avoid common obstacles and ledges and clean more efficiently. It uses lasers for mapping and takes advantage of dToF (Direct Time Of Flight) sensors allowing for 360° scans to find the most optimal cleaning path. Yeah I guess we’re just casually using aerospace technology to give you a clean home now. The cool part of this feature, apart from just boosting its ability to do full and efficient cleans, is that you can designate zones and then operate the DEEBOT with simple voice commands to hit trouble spots. You could also do it remotely via your phone from work if it came down to it.
From here ECOVACS ROBOTICS is setting their sights on new and headier heights. Not content to keep things easy and horizontal, ECOVACS ROBOTICS is also concentrating on conquering the vertical. They first entered the window cleaning space in 2011, and a ton of R&D has since led them to releasing the WINBOT W1 PRO which dropped just this year. The WINBOT, as the name lightly suggests, is a window cleaning bot that suction itself to windows and does a full and spotless clean. It has three different modes depending on what you’re trying to achieve, fast clean, deep clean and spot clean. This allows you to sit back, relax and just enjoy the view. It makes it hard to reach windows outside with a breeze, as you can apply it from inside and just let it go about its business.
Even the technology of cleaning itself has been supercharged in the 25 years ECOVACS ROBOTICS have been in the business, constantly pushing their technology in new directions. In the last two years alone suction power on their automated vacuums have doubled, putting them on par with standard home vacuums. This means that ECOVACS ROBOTICS have successfully worked around the compact limitations originally placed on the robotic vacuums form factor.
“Today, robot vacuums have the ability to compete with traditional vacuums in terms of suction power, are able to move around the house thanks to proprietary AI obstacle detection technology, can both mop and vacuum in a single pass, and know their way around your home.” Karen Powell explains. “You can now set schedules remotely and essentially leave it to its own devices as it cleans autonomously when, where and how exactly you want your home cleaned. It’s been a big feat, but I genuinely believe New Zealanders are responding to this and realising the huge benefits such products can bring to their day-to-day lives.”
I guess this is just a big roundabout way of saying ECOVACS ROBOTICS have been part of the journey to make my Jetsons fantasy into a reality.
