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Matic is the robot vacuum we’ve all been dreaming of
Robot vacuums are a very normal part of everyday life for many people these days. If you think back to about 20 years ago, it was a different story. Robot vacuums were a thing but they were much less common in households. These days, you can find robot vacuums in many people’s homes, and across every price point with a varying degree of features. Many of them offer similar functions but at the same time, can be unique in more than a few ways. All of them have one thing in common though.
They all use a combination of sensors and lidar tech to capture a map of your home and then use that to navigate and clean up. Enter Matic, a robot vacuum that was announced at CES this week. It swaps all of that out for five cameras powered by computer vision to visually see where it’s cleaning. The reason this is a big deal is because Matic, the company of the same name that created this little cleaning bot, says it solves the two biggest problems that other robot vacuums have. They can get stuck or lost more often than you’d like. Matic apparently doesn’t have these issues.
It won’t get lost because the 5 cameras will allow it to see all of its surroundings. It knows where it’s going at all times and is less likely to bump into anything. The computer vision meanwhile, helps it learn over time to make it smarter. Learning when the best times to clean are. It also has big wheels on the front to help it roll over any floor surface. So high pile rugs shouldn’t be an issue.
Nor should other things that it might encounter as it rolls around your home sucking up dirt and debris. Cables, shoes, a coffee mug. If these things are sitting around on the floor the cameras will see it, Matic says, and the vacuum will simply move around that area.
This bot has a trick up its sleeve – it can clean up liquid spills
If there’s one thing robot vacuums need improvement on, it’s mopping. A lot of the models out today have variants with a built-in mop. But most of them won’t do as good of a job as you hope and none of them can actually clean up liquid spills. Matic can. The unique way it was designed allows it to roll forward with the vacuum head sucking up dirt and debris. If it comes across a liquid spill or a spot that needs mopping, and then the vacuum head lowers as Matic changes into mop mode, and it rolls over that area to clean it up.
It also stores all of the liquid, dirt, and debris in the same bag. You do have to empty the bag yourself, but only once every month or so. You just open up the top lid and pull the bag out and toss it, then replace the bag so it’s ready again. The idea is that Matic is a completely autonomous robot vacuum (other than emptying the bag) that doesn’t need input from you whether it’s to start a clean or set up a schedule. It’ll just clean on its own and get better at doing it the more it cleans.
Matic is a unique robot vacuum that offers features that set it apart from every other robot vacuum on the market. And that’s why Matic has earned the Best of CES 2024 award. Matic will begin shipping in March and pre-orders are already up on the Matic website. It retails for a discounted price of $1,495 if you pre-order.