Roomba challenger is a wonderful home-cleaning robot Smarbo from Toshiba

Toshiba has come up with a proposal for a new robotic friend for cleaning your house. Named as Smarbo, meaning a smart robot, the cordless cleaner is intended to stand a tough competition to its US based opponent Roomba by iRobot. Toshiba’s wonder element, Smarbo VC-RB100, is a self propelled, cordless and rechargeable vacuum cleaner which yields to programming based to user’s specifications. In more ways than one it clearly surpasses its competitor and is looking of winning hearts and markets across globe.

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It is armed with twin Central Processing Unit for double intellect functioning, a camera facing the ceiling for proper route mapping and confirming movements added to a sharp arrangement of 38 sensors acting with its new navigation technology to yield accurate detection and outlining of areas to clean and routing itself back to its charging unit. The sensors manipulate speed with its acceleration sensor, the distance to tour with its sensor detection range and the operation angle through gyro sensing functions. The Toshiba sources have declared that the Smarbo is capable of cleaning wide household areas of 100sq meter in approx an hour and half with admirable power utilizations at $0.03 for that time span. It can also be programmed for ‘spot-mode’ where it will go forward to clean the specific chosen circular area of about 1.5 x 1.5 meters and return back to resting position.

The wonder cleaner is equipped with features similar to its competitor robot – Roomba, of dodging obstacles. With the help of its camera it can recognize the presence of objects around and spot your furniture, plants or people while mapping the room. It can sense the stairs and prevent from toppling down an can also sense spots it has already cleaned in the room, thus avoiding repeated movements and saving on electricity, time and physical damage. It works within a virtual fence and thus stops operating automatically. The equipment has a body safe feature that prevents any damage or harm when it is lifted up by your kids playfully or ungracefully, during cleaning. It operates in four pre-programmed options of auto, spot, careful and manual modes. The user can define the specifications based on this mode to attain maximum satisfaction.

To attract the dust, the robot has adept brushes on either sides of its base body. While functioning, the brush rotates to imprison the dirt in its filter and thus moves ahead leaving behind a clean surface. The ‘Turbo’ feature however, provides a more detailed cleaning process with enhanced brushing speeds. In addition to cleaning floors it also cleans walls or furniture surfaces. The wonder robot also works on audio guide for “mop” or “dry-clean floors. This smooth operator works quite noiselessly at 52 decibels and emits clear audible alarms in times of distress.

With dimensions of 355 × 355 × 93 mm and weighing around 3.7kg, it is easy to store and handle. The Smarbo VC-RB100 comes with a remote control for easy programming and effortless functioning. Thee unit after finishing its task of cleaning the desired room or space will return to its charging station automatically. It’s Ni-MH batteries can be fully charged to perfection in two hours at 40W and is going to available in US and Japanese markets 1, October 2011 onwards. Priced at $1,175 it provides a safe smart cleaning option.

Via: TechCrunch