Dyson 360 Eye

[robotreviews]

Dyson will be announcing the Dyson 360 Eye today. Formerly known as Dyson Project N223, the Dyson 360 Eye has been 16 years in the making.

The Dyson 360 Eye robot is an intelligent robot that has the most powerful suction of any robot on the market, capturing more dirt than any other robot in one pass. It combines the latest Dyson digital motor and Root Cyclone technology to separate dust and dirt, capturing particles down to 0.5 microns - that's 600 times smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.

The Dyson 360 Eye has a vision system that can actually see with it's 360 degree panoramic camera. According to Dyson, it can differentiate a sofa from a stair case and it captures 30 frames per second to create a virtual map of a room and can pinpoint where it's been and what it needs to clean next. But navigation is only half the story. According to Dyson, the 360 Eye actually uses complex algorithms to calculate decisions while it cleans and it can prioritize areas based on time, area covered and complexity, so it will start cleaning the easiest surfaces first. When it's battery starts to run low, it can recharge itself and then continue where it left off. It also has all-terrain continuous tank tracks that allow it to maintain speed and direction across all floor types from hardwood floors to plush carpet. The beater bar extends the full width of the machine, and it has carbon fiber filaments that remove fine dust from the floor as well.

You will be able to control the 360 Eye from your smartphone with the Dyson Link app. You can start, stop, pause or schedule the 360 Eye even when your away from home. You can also schedule it to clean the entire house while your out, and if it encounters any problems it has a Wi-Fi connection so it can send an alert to your directly to your phone or possibly send diagnostic information directly to Dyson for troubleshooting.

Dyson is expecting to start shipping the Dyson 360 Eye in Japan sometime in early 2015, but they haven't announced any sort of pricing or availability in other markets yet.

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[assuncap]

Any word on pricing? Looks super cool by the way.

[assuncap]

Engadget is mentioning 1650$... about 1250€. That's mad.

[robotreviews]

This site just went live:

http://www.dyson360eye.com

[mfortuna]

The Dyson looks like it has a lot of cool features but it is so tall it will not get under furniture or cabinets.

[jvendor]

Do we have any dimension information? It seems quite tall.
Also the brush width is small, though I am comparing that to Botvac's 28cm.
A battery life of 20min? wow..
Considering the price would be about 1250 Euros, this is certainly a gadget for the never ever vacuuming rich technomaniacs!

[gregj]

Good thing I didn't buy 880, cos iRobot guys refused to give me a discount they promised before.
Just add a bit up, and get this

[piokrza]

Seems to be much narrower than e.g. Roomba, but taller than too. Nice to see self-charging station as DC06 had not this. Battery capacity/run time may be shorter than all those others, but it is probably due to limited space inside robot body and high power consumption. But it has mapping technology, so it can come back to dock, recharge and return to place where it left. Price is very high though and the 'tallness' will not make it leader of the market, yet. All in all, nice project. Would love to give it a try in my full of thresholds/rugs environment.

[mofan]

FYI on the price, the Daily Mail newspaper in Britain states that the price will be around 750 British pounds rather than 1250. That is the equivalent of $1250. Keep in mind, though, that things are always more expensive in Europe than in the U.S. For instance, the Playstation 4 is 339 pounds in Europe, or the equivalent of 557 U.S. dollars. The same machine is $400 here. For that reason, I fully expect the Dyson robot to cost right around $1000 when it launches in the U.S. Another article this morning states that Dyson expects the price to be competitive in the robot vacuum market. $1000 sounds like a lot, but Irobot keeps raising its prices and is now at $700 for its top of the line model, which is far less capable as a cleaning machine than the Dyson.

[mofan]

My thoughts on the Dyson robot:

Positives
-Cleaning power. Clearly it will have more cleaning power than any robot vacuum on the market. I don't think that anyone would dispute that even before seeing reviews of the Dyson. Other than the advanced motor and the cyclone technology, the robot seems to have other advantages over the roomba, such as the dual purpose brushes that stretch the width of the robot (unlike the roomba).
-Price. If the robot is around $1000 like I think, then it should have significant success. People happily plop down 500-600 for a Dyson that you have to push, so why not a bit more for one that cleans by itself? Also, never underestimate the power of the Dyson brand. It really is the Apple of vacuum companies, and is able to charge a "name" premium.
-Robotic technology. Obviously the navigation/positioning/base finding technology and the app control technology is worlds better than roomba, and makes the robot a much more efficient cleaner.

Negatives
-Price. If the robot is more like $1500 rather than $999, that will hurt its appeal even with the Dyson name attached.
-Size of the robot. I was surprised to see how narrow it is at only 8 inches wide. That seems like a narrow cleaning path, which leads to my next point...
-Cleaning time. If the robot has a fairly narrow cleaning path and only lasts 20-30 minutes, while it is very thoroughly cleaning for that short time, is that reallly long enough to clean your whole house? It isn't clear to me that the Dyson moves that much more quickly than the roomba. Also, it isn't clear that the Dyson can even do what the Neato does, namely, go back to its base and charge, and then go out to finish the job. If you can't count on the Dyson to clean your entire house without intervention, it is not as autonomous as Dyson claims.

How nervous should Irobot be?
Based on some of the negatives listed above, the Dyson robot does not look like the end of the world for Irobot. If Dyson's price is indeed at least $300 more than the high end roomba, then Irobot may be able to differentiate itself as the value provider of robot vacuums. Strangely enough, Irobot has always pitched itself not as the value robot maker, but as the premium robot maker. Dyson is now stealing that crown, so Irobot will likely need to carve its niche at the lower price points. Irobot would be foolish to try and add more features and compete at the same price point as the Dyson.

I expect that in 2015 the Roomba will come out with some of the features that it has already hinted at this year, such as room mapping, etc. but will keep its price well below the Dyson's price. Dyson may even benefit Irobot due to its unique ability to market its products to a wide audience. There is still a wide segment of the population that knows little or nothing about robot vacuums, and Dyson will change that with a marketing campaign that Irobot could never afford. Also, while the Dyson robot looks very nice, there are features that it does not appear to have that Irobot could add to differentiate its product, such as room-to-room navigation where you could specify on your smartphone which rooms you want to be cleaned by name (i.e. telling Roomba to clean the dining room and living room only). They could also add the long-rumored self-emptying dustbin.

[netsloh]

I'm very disappointed:

- it's costly
- it won't clean under most of our furniture
- the Battery life is a bad joke
- in our apartment the dyson would have to recharge 2 times - so cleaning once would take HOURS
- it probably won't work in the dark at all

So I'll go for the Vorwerk VR 200 which is the better choice in nearly any aspect.

[mofan]

Despite what I said earlier about the battery life, while 20-30 minutes is not very long, since the Dyson cleans well enough to go over each spot only once, while the Roomba goes over each spot an average of four times, in theory, Dyson should be able to cover as much ground as the Roomba would in 80-120 minutes. So the story isn't quite as bad as seems at first. Having said that, I would have shot for a 45 minute battery life. That would have been enough to clean even a huge home without running out of juice. Unfortunately, inadequate battery life seems to be a pattern across many products/industries...

[piokrza]

question is: how long would it take to re-charge its batteries? DC06 was 45 minutes....

[third_deg]

As expected:

Ignores toe kicks: they dis ("spindly side brushes"), yet make no attempt to clean toe kicks

Too tall to go under couches

Short run time, so one pass, with lots of recharge attempts.


Says it vacuums as you do? Most humans make multiple passes. Just take a normal Dyson, make a single pass, and notice you still get dirt when you make another.

It's good, I like the looks and at least it's not absolutely huge. It just exchanges one set of liabilities for another.

[jvendor]

Well, after reading all the comments above, it certainly seems that the new Botvac is the best choice around.
It costs much less, more powerful than Roomba, have more juice in total from Roomba and Dyson, got widest effective brush and mediocre speed.
Ok, it doesn't have a good name comparing to rivals but..

[Fraggboy]

I am impressed with what has been written up. But, like we all know, real World-Tests differ from laboratory tests.

I am saddened about the battery life. I didn't come across if when it needs to charge the battery, it will navigate to the charger and resume cleaning.. Did I miss that?!

I do agree I like my robotic vacuum to go under the bed/toe kicks in the kitchen/etc... :/ I am on the fence on this one...

BUT, I *do* know my Dyson upright cleans my floors superbly with more than enough suction. With the Eye having superior suction power teamed up with a bristle brush, it might need only 1 pass.

I do like the app so you can program the robot. I am not keen on navigating it with a remote, but I am sure some like the feature.

EDIT: When the battery is low, it will navigate to the charger, charge the battery, and then resume cleaning.. The short battery life doesn't bug me too much then. I don't care how many charges it takes to clean my home. I set my Karcher to clean for 6 hours, and it goes back/forth to the dock to recharge and keep cleaning. Sad, the Dyson won't empty the bin itself tho..

[Fraggboy]

So, I emailed them to try to get some more information. They replied that units won't be available until around fall of 2015 for other Countries..

[mofan]

Has Dyson confirmed that it goes back out and cleans again to finish a job after charging? That would alleviate one concern, especially if the charge time is not too ridiculously long. Hopefully with a lithium ion battery the charge time would be shorter than the Roomba.

[piokrza]

Has Dyson confirmed that it goes back out and cleans again to finish a job after charging?

Yep. Check official Dyson website http://www.dyson360eye.com/

More wonder how it will tackle with long human and pet hair...

[piokrza]

Check this: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1892 ... nally-here It has 0.4 Litre dustbin and weight itself 5.22 pounds (2.37 kg). Also, its motor is Dyson Digital Motor V2 which can spin up to 78,000 rpm!!