I love a good robot cleaner. It takes away all the tedious jobs and frees up some time that can be better spent doing something more interesting instead.
Of course, the emphasis there is on the “good” part. There are plenty of robots out there that can actually make things feel worse rather than better, flicking dirt across your floor rather than vacuuming it away, or spreading food across the floor rather than mopping it away.
Now before anyone starts getting ideas, I don’t have impossibly high standards for floor cleaning. I don’t need things to be perfect; I just need it to be good enough that I don’t have to do the vacuuming and mopping every day. And for it not to leave a trail of cereal bits in its wake. Half-decent obstacle avoidance would be good. Bonus points if it avoids getting stuck on mats or under the table.
I don’t think that is asking a lot. I had even made my peace with the fact that the one thing that will take down a robot cleaner is a stray sock or cable, when the Roborock Saros Z70 launched in Ireland. Not only does it have a dose of AI built in to guide its way around your home, but the robot cleaner has a hidden weapon to make sure the sock clogs are a thing of the past: a robot arm that will pick up certain items and deposit them in a predetermined location.
