Tag: vacuum cleaners

Robot vacuum cleaners to clean up

Posted on February 11, 2015 by - News

Robot - image from Wikimedia CommonsA report said that home care and lawnmowing robots will be worth close to $3 billion by 2019.

ABI Research said vacuum cleaners will dominate the market and it expects over seven million robots to be in use worldwide by 2019.

Over 3.4 million robots were sold in 2014, so that represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.6 percent over the period to 2019.

Dan Kara, a research director at ABI, said the market is the largest, fastest growing and most dynamic sector of the consumer robotics market.

“The addressable markets for these devices are substantial, penetration levels are nowhere near saturation, and in some cases markets are virtually untouched,” he said.

He said that over the next few years we could expect to see various advances in terms of lower prices, better functionally and greater levels of performance and autonomy.

The overall market includes vacuum cleaners, floor cleaners, lawn mowers and pool cleaners.

Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 11.41.02

Homes to be packed with gizmos

Posted on September 9, 2014 by - News

chateauIn just eight years time, ordinary family homes will be bursting with technology.

That’s a prediction market research firm Gartner is making for 2022.  Its report said a home in affluent societies, at least, could have over 500 smart devices.

So what are these devices to be?  It estimates a wide range of domestic equipment will become “smart”, inasmuch as they’ll include some level of sensing and intelligence and the ability to communicate wirelessly.

And such vacuum cleaners and washing machines won’t cost more to have “smartness”, with semiconductor economies of scale meaning that a chip won’t cost more than about one US dollar.

Your cooker will be smart, your TVs will be smart, your fitness equipment will be smart, your security will be smart, your toaster will be smart. Everything will be smart as the internet of things starts to cast its spell over our world.

But it won’t be all plain sailing, because ordinary people might not want all this “smartness”.  Products which incorporate intelligence must be easy to use and not require a degree in geekiness. And if smartness can’t be relied upon and start failing – well your house might not be such a home.