Do you remember the first time you used a robot vacuum? I remember mine. It was one of iRobot’s early Roombas. I was transfixed, watching this chunky black disc whiz noisily around, bashing into walls and furniture before zipping off in seemingly random directions like a hockey puck slapped haphazardly across the ice. It wasn’t good at its job, but in a way, its clumsy sort of chaos made it charming.

Nothing is charming about most robot vacuums, now. In fact, most of them are boring as hell. Don’t get me wrong, they can be nice to have. But it feels like manufacturers have made a collective decision to ignore the R2-D2 of it all in their quest to turn their products into Very Serious Appliances. Why that might be is anyone’s guess, but I suspect either it hasn’t occurred to them to make a

See Full Page