iRobot has announced an update to its HOME app, alongside Alexa support for its Roomba robot vacuum cleaners.
The company’s decision to finally add support for Amazon’s digital assistant means owners can now instruct Alexa to make any connected Roomba robot start cleaning with a simple voice command.
Users will be able to start, stop and pause Roomba cleaning jobs with voice activated commands such as “Alexa, ask Roomba to begin cleaning.”
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At this point, it looks like those three actions are the only things users will be able to ask the robots to do through Alexa, but it’s certainly a start.
“iRobot is aggressively pursuing opportunities within the connected home to improve our customers’ experience with our cleaning robots,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot.
“The latest updates for the iRobot HOME App make cleaning with an iRobot Roomba vacuuming robot even more user friendly, with voice-activated commands, enhanced mapping features and useful post-cleaning reports.
“These are exciting next steps towards our vision of an ecosystem of home robots that work collaboratively and further enable the smart home.”
Roomba is making the Alexa skill for its robots available to U.S. customers in Q2 2017, though a UK date is yet to be confirmed.
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The company also announced updates to the iRobot HOME App which will add a new Clean Map report that provides “visual post-cleaning maps that display information about the robot’s cleaning performance.”
That means users will be able to see, via the app, information such as the dirtiest floor areas and total space cleaned.
The update is available for download right now worldwide for iOS and Android users.
Let us know what you think of the latest updates in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
