Sweeping Robot: Strive To Change From Usable To Easy To Use

"My puppies always shed hair. After buying the robot vacuum cleaner, the whole family is basically freed from housework such as sweeping and mopping the floor, saving a lot of time." Mr. Wang, who lives in Jimenli Community, Haidian District, Beijing I bought a sweeping robot a few years ago, "fast charging, strong suction, good cleaning effect, very convenient." Mr. Wang told reporters that this robot has high technical content, automatic obstacle avoidance, zone cleaning and other functions, and it is cost-effective. The maintenance cost is low, the floor space is not large, and "housework has been intelligentized".

Now, people have more options for cleaning their homes. The technologically advanced sweeping robots, whether it is basic cleaning work or various thoughtful additional "services", can save users worry and effort. Sweeping robots are entering more households, becoming a "good helper" for home cleaning, and bringing new "opening methods" to housework.

After three generations to achieve "recognize the road"

Turn on the switch and let the sweeping robot "go around" at home-every few days, Wang Yubin, the evaluation blogger "Tomato Stewed Tomato", will repeat this operation. He is not only a product reviewer, but also a loyal user of sweeping robots. "Children at home always throw paper scraps and rubber crumbs on the ground, and they are scattered over a large area. The sweeping robot can suck up these garbage and 'take care' of the room. The corners and corners are very practical.”

Clicking on the home-made sweeping robot purchase page, in the evaluation area, the reporter saw many user messages: "The cleaning ability is excellent", "It can improve happiness", "Buy it for parents, it's worth it"... This reflects the user's affirmation of the product , which also shows the strength of domestic sweeping robots.

However, a few years ago, the related technology of domestic sweeping robots was far inferior to today, and the products were regarded as "chicken ribs", and it was more common to be "useable" but not "easy to use". One of the most troubling problems is that the robot always collides with obstacles, and the user has to manually move it away so that it can continue to work.

For this "pain point", Cheng Fei, vice president of Stone Technology, introduced that the main reason is that the product's obstacle avoidance performance is not good enough, and the navigation ability is poor. In other words, when the sweeping robot arrives in a room, it cannot perceive the furniture and walls in the distance in advance, and it cannot plan its way forward in advance.

"In fact, every stage from birth to growth of sweeping robots depends on the development of navigation and obstacle avoidance technology, which means that navigation and obstacle avoidance is a major premise for whether the product is easy to use or not." Cheng Fei said, subject to the constraints of the time At the technical level, the first two generations of sweeping robots in the industry are slightly clumsy. In 2016, Roborock Technology combined the algorithm with LiDAR to draw the outline of the room and generate the cleaning route through the laser. The robot vacuum cleaner entered the third-generation development stage - the stage of navigation and mapping. Thanks to the use of lasers to avoid obstacles, the robot vacuum cleaner can easily clean even in a pitch-dark room.

Wang Yubin has purchased several domestic brands of sweepers for comparison. He placed slippers, data cables, sockets, notebooks and Switch gamepads on the ground at the narrow entrance to test the product's navigation and obstacle avoidance performance. The test results are that, except for occasional light touches, several sweeping robots do not touch obstacles in most traveling states.

"It is this ability to self-clean in a room with a complex environment that makes the sweeping robot 'win' over vacuum cleaners and hand-held washing machines, and has won everyone's recognition." Wang Yubin said, "Cleaning ability is very important, but only in the Only when the obstacle is accurately identified can the sweeping robot function smoothly, otherwise it can only rotate in a small area and cannot 'comprehend' the whole house."

Since 2016, a variety of advanced navigation methods, including lidar, have been applied to the sweeping robot, which further improves the accuracy of its judgment of obstacles. Cheng Fei said: "Technological breakthroughs are the key driving force for industrial upgrading. The stronger the underlying technologies such as data resources, computing power and core algorithms, the faster the development of the sweeping robot industry. In the future, the industry will develop the fourth and fifth generations. The sweeping robot, the product's ability to 'recognize the way' will be stronger."

Self-cleaning function is favored

If the sweeping robot can only sweep and mop the floor automatically, it is not enough to free your hands. Wang Yubin said that after completing the cleaning, frequent manual intervention is required in the follow-up, so he responded to the "sweeper work, and people clean the sweeper" that many people complained about. "So after the automation of sweeping and mopping is realized, everyone hopes that it can clean the mop by itself and change the water automatically."

At present, the square base station attached to most sweeping robots on the market hides the brand's response to this appeal. According to Yan Le, chief marketing officer of Yunjing Intelligence, Yunjing has developed a sweeping and dragging robot that can automatically clean the mop, the Yunjing J1. There are two water tanks in its base station, which store clean water and collect dirty water respectively. Clean water is sprayed onto the dirty mop through the pipe, and the mop, like being washed with a washing board, is rotated and cleaned by the "cleaning ribs" composed of strips and dots in the base station, and then the remaining sewage is recycled into the sewage tank.

The Cloud Whale J1 makes the automatic cleaning mop a reality, and it still needs manual operation by the user to inject clean water and discharge sewage. "We found that some users will buy automatic water changing devices. Although it is very troublesome to install and the exposed water pipes affect the appearance, they still do it, which proves that it is just needed." Yan Le said. Yunjing launched the second-generation product Yunjing J2 for this purpose. The automatic water inlet and outlet module of this product is composed of a clean water tank and a sewage tank, which are respectively connected to the clean water inlet pipe and the sewage drain pipe to automatically enter and drain water.

"Automatic water intake and water supply is a breakthrough direction in the technical dimension of the sweeping robot industry, and it is also an inevitable trend in the development of the industry. Just as washing machines, dishwashers and other household appliances involving water have the function of automatic water intake and drainage, the sweeping robot must eventually achieve automatic Change the water and reduce manual intervention." Yan Le said.

It is worth noting that the cleaned mop is not easy to dry in the base station. If mold occurs, it will affect the effect of the mop and the floor. In this regard, Cloud Whale's solution is to let the mop dry automatically. The fan in the base station blows out the normal temperature air at the speed equivalent to the computer cooling fan, and then supplemented by a heating plate of 45 degrees Celsius, it can speed up the drying of the mop. After the transformation, the drying time has also been shortened from 6 hours of the first-generation product to within 4 hours of the second-generation product.

Industry data shows that in the first half of 2021, the market share of sweeping robots that do not have self-cleaning functions such as automatic cleaning mops and automatic drying is as high as 63.5%. By the first half of this year, such products accounted for only 16.2%, which confirms the user's preference for the self-cleaning function from one side.

Deeply integrated into the home Internet of Things

If before, the major brands aimed at perfecting the functions of cleaning, navigation and obstacle avoidance, and self-cleaning, now everyone is competing to see who has richer and more detailed product functions. Fu Yifu, a senior researcher at Xingtu Financial Research Institute, pointed out that thanks to the increasing maturity of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and cloud computing, the sweeping robot industry has entered a period of vigorous development. The products have added many additional functions on the basis of the functions of traditional home appliances, and have become more and more diversified and personalized, which surprises the majority of users.

In recent years, many users have the need to sanitize the floor while mopping the floor. Major sweeper brands or research and development sterilization mops, or place cleaning tablets in the clean water tank. Some users want the sweeper to be smarter and more fun, and brands are working hard on human-computer interaction. "Go to sweep under the sofa", "Adjust the suction to the maximum", "Switch to quiet mode", click on the mobile APP, and you can command the sweeper with only voice; "How is the weather today", "What time is it", ask and answer questions The sweeping robot incarnates as a "little assistant for life"... More and more new tricks enrich the user experience.

Sweeping robots are small household appliances and also a category of service robots. Where will they go in the future? Cheng Fei said that as service robots gradually become one of the best carriers for 5G technology applications, the sweeper will also integrate more intelligent functions on the existing basis, deeply integrate into the home Internet of Things, and add more technological colors to users' lives. At present, Roborock Technology has realized the intelligent connection between mobile phones and sweeping robots. In the future, it will strive to open up the "partition" between different smart home appliances, realize deeper intelligent interconnection, and create "whole house intelligence".

Yan Le believes that no matter how rich the additional functions are, the degree of intelligence and cleaning power are always the core capabilities of the sweeping robot. Yunjing's latest product, J3 Little Jingling, is equipped with a self-developed sewage identification system, which can judge the degree of dirtiness of the ground and the mop during the mopping process, and actively adjust the cleaning and mopping time according to the working environment, so as to achieve a higher level of intelligence on the mopping ground. ization and automation.

"Next, we will continue to work hard on intelligence and automation, continue to solve user cleaning pain points, make products more 'smart', and help everyone achieve 'housework freedom'." Yan Le said.