When Dyson failed to release its first robotic vacuum cleaner back in 2001, the DC06, I was a teenager that didn’t know much of anything about robots and how it works. Now I grew, and I can understand how to distinguish two products, two robots, or to identify what works and what does not work on the robot.
Could the British inventor reinvent the invention again with its Dyson 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner? We will see, but at least two things are clear: the 360 Eye it looks like designing by Steve Jobs and is innovative enough to stay ahead of the rest of the world. More than that, can be defined at least five differences that make the Dyson 360 unique and probably the most advanced robot cyclone suction cleaner in the world.
The deeper I start to dig into the 360 Eye robot characteristics, the more I find clear differences between the Dyson robot and its rivals such as iRobot, Samsung or Neato. The humans don’t need robots with sapphire, or even hundred of sensors and thousand of feature, we all needs products that works, and works as well that we start to love and talk about it with our friends and forget in time that we have other options.
It is time to understand why Dyson’s robot vacuum took 16 years to be developed and what are the major differences between the Dyson 360 Eye and its direct rivals: iRobot, Samsung and Neato.
1. 360 Degrees Vision
The 360 degrees vision allows the robot to navigate in an entirely new way. The little cleaner knows at every moment (at 30 times a second) where it’s been, where it’s yet to clean the floor, and where it’ll be in the room by selecting reference points and triangulate its position. The Dyson robot systematically cleans the room in three-meter grids. Most of the robot vacuum cleaners on the market had sensors to avoid obstacles or for falling off the stairs. All these sensors are completed by a navigation system able to localize the robot and create a map of the room. I do not have doubts that these systems work, but there is much room for errors.
2. Digital Motor
This is the first robot cleaner with a light and small digital motor that deliver an unprecedented suction power compared with any other robot from its range. The digital motor is a brushless DC motor designed with a RPM encoder able to adjust the current for constant RPM speed. However, what is the difference between a digital motor and a brushless DC motor? This difference can be seen in the decreasing speed when the brushless DC motor is under load, while a digital motor can adjust the current depending on the load. When it has low load, the motor can save power.
3. Cyclone Suction
The Radial Root Cyclone technology is not new but is for the first time used at such a small scale. Powered by a 78,000-RPM digital motor, the Dyson 360 Eye could separate the dust and dirt while the dimensions of the particles captures are measured in microns (0.5 microns). This cleaning technology is powerful and better enough to clean the house than any other advanced home cleaner can do.
4. Tank Treads instead Wheels
No one until now has the courage to use tank treads instead wheels for a robot vacuum cleaner. Dyson knew what are the advantages and disadvantages of the tracks compared with wheels, and now he assumed the most advanced system for moving inside the house. The bot is now able to climb a wide range of surfaces of up to 15mm and has increased traction compared with a wheeled system.
5. The Designing Time
All sixteen years of design and development is a long time in technology, but the effort of engineers can be filled in every millimeter of the little cleaner. The Dyson robot cleaner make me understand that the difference between success and failure is more than luck. What any company should do is to revolutionize the system, the product, and of course the robot. The Dyson 360 Eye is probably the clearest example so far.
In this article, I write a list of five differences, or better said five technologies and systems that cannot be found in any vacuum cleaner bot presented on the market. I don’t have a 360 Eye robot, and most probably I’ll don’t have one until 2015 when the robot is planned to be available in Europe, China, or Australia. The price is uncertain and varies from source to source somewhere between $1,250 and $1,650.
Until now, I said what I have to say about the Dyson bot. For now, if you find useful this information, you have the power to use the comment section and social network icons to leave your opinion or to share the article with your friends.