Robotic vacuum cleaner

The dream of autonomous housework dates to the earliest visions of robotics. But practical robotic cleaning required solving navigation, obstacle avoidance, and power management—challenges that kept the concept in science fiction for decades. By the late 1990s, falling sensor costs and improved battery technology made consumer robots conceivable.

Electrolux released the Trilobite in 2001, the first commercial robotic vacuum, but its $1,800 price limited adoption. The breakthrough came from iRobot, founded in 1990 by MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab veterans Rodney Brooks, Colin Angle, and Helen Greiner. Their Roomba, launched in September 2002 at $199, stripped away sophisticated navigation in favor of a 'behavior-based' approach: simple sensors detected obstacles and cliffs, while a semi-random movement pattern eventually covered most floor area. The price point made mass adoption possible.

The adjacent possible required several technological convergences. Lithium-ion batteries provided sufficient energy density for extended cleaning cycles. Infrared sensors became cheap enough for mass-market devices. Microprocessors powerful enough for real-time decision-making had dropped to commodity prices. And critically, the robotics research community had developed 'subsumption architecture'—Brooks's approach of layering simple behaviors rather than centralized planning—which allowed functional robots without expensive computation.

iRobot's military heritage shaped the Roomba's design philosophy. The company had built bomb disposal robots and reconnaissance drones for DARPA. These military applications emphasized reliability over sophistication—robots that kept working despite damage and confusion. The same principles applied to consumer products: Roomba didn't need perfect navigation, just persistent coverage and tolerance for obstacles.

The geographic concentration around MIT was significant. Boston's Route 128 corridor hosted iRobot alongside other spin-offs from the AI Lab and CSAIL. The region's venture capital community understood robotics. Universities supplied engineering talent. This ecosystem enabled the years of R&D before commercial viability—iRobot worked on military and research contracts while developing consumer products.

By 2002, iRobot had sold millions of Roombas. Competitors emerged globally: Neato added LIDAR navigation, Ecovacs and Roborock from China offered feature-rich alternatives. Samsung, LG, and other consumer electronics giants entered the market. The category matured from novelty to standard appliance—by 2025, robotic vacuums accounted for over 20% of vacuum cleaner sales globally.

Robotic vacuums also served as a beachhead for home robotics broadly. The infrastructure—docking stations, mapping software, smartphone apps—laid groundwork for other autonomous home devices. More importantly, they normalized the presence of autonomous machines in domestic spaces, shifting cultural expectations about what robots could and should do.