Yeah, that's because Dyson has always been about aping and calling it innovation. Machine vision is a bitch and it's the wrong way to go about it, in my opinion.

For the record, I own two Roombas and the way they do it is astoundingly stupid. A Roomba, despite all its hackability, RS232, dozen sensors and all the rest is basically a pool cleaner - it goes until it hits an obstacle then bounces off. The bounce is more intelligent than the pool cleaners the world has known since the '50s but it's still primitive.

I thought things would change when Roomba bought Mint - Mint doesn't just ricochet itself around the room, it uses a "beacon"' and stepper/encoders to build a map of where it is and where it's been. You combine that with Roomba's sensors and you start to build up an image of the room, what's changed, what hasn't, where the beacon was, where the beacon is, where the chair was, where the chair is, where the snarling hazards are, etc.

Instead, Roomba has their "roomba" fork and they have their "mint" fork - they call it a "Braava" for reasons that make no sense to anyone.

A vacuum cleaner doesn't need to see - there are no mobile hazards in its life and it's expensive anyway A vacuum cleaner needs to know where it is, where it's been, where it's going and how much dirt it's sucked up in doing so. All the rest is James Dyson talking down to his audience as he's wont to do.