Since the 2002 introduction of the first Roomba, we have been waiting for the next big thing in household automation and for the so-called robot revolution to cut down on household chores, preferably without regularly getting stuck in corners.
What has improved in the past 15 years of automation? What labour-saving robots are on the market now, and what will we see in the future?
Cooking, cleaning, and gardening
As mentioned, the first Roomba robotic vacuums came in 2002. In 2017, there is now a huge range of robot vacuums featuring Wi-Fi and app integration, so everything can be scheduled or controlled remotely, making them truly automatic.
Outside, there are a range of similar robots, from lawnmowers working on similar principals to vacuums and with a similar range of features to app-integrated watering systems to keep your garden alive through the worst heatwaves and roomba-like robots to clean your grill.
Moving away from the hoover-like robots, the next big trend in kitchen automation and assistance is smart ovens. Smart ovens integrate with phone apps, which means you can start and manage cooking from anywhere and even come home to find your dinner ready to eat. Moreover, recent smart ovens can identify the food you are cooking and suggest cooking times and temperatures, in addition to monitoring and reporting on the doneness of your dinner, leading to perfect results every time.
Home integration and personal assistants
Now that every mobile device has a personal assistant, regardless of its name, home automation systems such as those from http://digitalinteriors.co.uk/project/home-automation-systems/ integrate with your phone PA and other systems in your home, from lighting to heating to home entertainment, to give you an ever-increasing level of control over your home no matter where you are.
Personal assistants don’t end at mobile devices. Newer robotic assistants can take family portraits and communicate with you through touchscreens and emoticons. More than just a gimmick, these robot assistants can keep track of people requiring care, provide reminders to keep them on track throughout the day, and even notify a carer if anything is going wrong, keeping everyone safe and happy.
Most of the robots on the market are still in the realm of gimmicky or prohibitively expensive, but times are changing quickly. Within a decade, they should be major time savers.