No one likes doing the vacuuming, but if The Jetsons taught us anything, it’s that robot maids will be a thing in the future. Proving that it’s more a thing of the now, Samsung has introduced a new members of its robot workforce for homes this week, with a new NaviBot that’s lighter on the wallet.
Designed to make a photographic map of your home and work out where needs cleaning, the NaviBot Light is the little brother of the NaviBot S, a vacuum cleaner that saw a launch in the middle of this year.
Similar to its brother, the NaviBot Light features some nifty sensors working together with a camera to make a map of your home and work our where to vacuum, analysing the information and working out the best and safest route with two processors acting as the brains in this operation.
“The latest NaviBot Light is a reliable and smart floor cleaning device for those with a busy schedule or who dread the weekly vacuum,” said Mike Lilly, Samsung’s Head of Home Appliances in Australia.
“Samsung is responding to the strong consumer interest and demand in the robotic vacuum cleaner space by providing an entry point model which still boasts exceptional features and benefits like the NaviBot predecessors.”
Four cleaning modes are offered, with an automatic mode, one where you can target a specific spot, a mode that cleans until it has run out of battery life, or just a manual mode that has you use a remote control to tell the NaviBot where to go.
Regardless of what you pick, in most situations, the robotic vacuum cleaner is intelligent enough to return to base for charging when it runs out of juice. You’ll still have to empty it, as self-cleaning models will set you back over a grand. It also can’t climb stairs, which seems to be a current limitation of most robots and robotic appliances in general.
Before this, the best RRP you could find a NaviBot for came in the form of the one that lacked self-cleaning, with the SR8950 grabbing a $1,099 price tag.
With this latest model – the SR8751 – that price is now effectively halved, sitting pretty at a recommended retail price of $599, which should be available in stores later this week.
