Mario Munich, Senior Vice President of Technology at iRobot, presents the “Intelligent Consumer Robots Powering the Smart Home” tutorial at the May 2018 Embedded Vision Summit.
The Internet Of Things (IoT) has rapidly developed in the past few years, enabled by affordable electronics components and powerful embedded microprocessors, ubiquitous internet access and WiFi in the household. Connected devices such as the Nest or Canary cameras, the Ring doorbell, Philips Hue lights, and smart TVs are now commonplace in homes. However, the common control of these devices in a concerted manner to improve the comfort of the user has proven challenging.
Multiple frameworks have been proposed to tackle this problem, but most of them require the user to manually place the devices in a map of the house, thus rendering the user interface cumbersome for regular consumers. iRobot is focused on mapping and navigation technology development to make its robots smarter, simpler to use, and to provide valuable spatial information to the broader ecosystem of connected devices in the home. Robot-built and -maintained home maps provide important spatial context by capturing the physical space of the home.
In this talk, Munich describes iRobot’s vision of the Smart Home, a home that maintains itself and magically just does the right thing in anticipation of occupant needs. This home will be built on an ecosystem of connected and coordinated robots, sensors, and devices that provides the occupants with a high quality of life by seamlessly responding to the needs of daily living–from comfort to convenience to security to efficiency.
