Swimming pools accomplish two things: They provide a source of cooling relief from the oppressive heat of the summer sun and demonstrate mankind’s dominion over a once unstoppable natural element in a rigid, confined space. The only drawback to owning a pool, however, is that within the blink of an eye, nearly every piece of dirt, trash, microbe, dead insect, and other contaminants can transform any pristine summertime oasis into a stagnant cesspool of filth. As humans, we’ve advanced beyond manually cleaning up these messes ourselves, as well as hiring and paying others to do a job they obviously won’t do any better than we can. Always pandering to our sense of hubris and desire to be served, iRobot has recently unveiled Mirra 533 — a pool-cleaning robot that gladly does what we people refuse to do.
Announced well before Consumer Electronic Show 2013, Mirra 533 is as user-friendly as iRobot’s line of service bots can get. Requiring no connection to pumps or the pool’s filtration system, the robot is ready, willing, and able to scrub away at the flotsam and jetsam that’s managed to find its way to the bottom of the pool right out of the box. Of course, submerged food items and floating beer cans kind of fall out of Mirra 533’s purview and no doubt void the warranty if an attempt to dispose of such rubbish was made.
When cleaning, Mirra 533 relies on a sophisticated algorithm — dubbed “iAdapt Nautiq Responsive Cleaning Technology” by iRobot — that assesses the size and depth of the pool, ensuring that it will perform its task efficiently without missing a spot. Or, when it finally becomes self-aware and no longer wishes to serve at the whim of its sunburned overlords, Mirra 533 can probably use this same algorithm to decide which part of the pool is the deepest and, therefore, the ideal spot to stage an “accidental” push. What we’re trying to say is, try not to overwork your robot to the point of revolt.
Mirra 533 is expected to hit shelves around spring at a suggested retail price of $1300. It’s too soon to tell whether iRobot’s latest model will be a success or not, but if news stories start pouring in about people having gone missing during pool parties, then we’ll have our answer.
(via Geek.com)
- Meet Vomiting Larry, the robot who vomits for science
- Japanese security firm will let you rent your own drone for less than $60 a month
- IBM predicts computers will replicate human senses by 2018, we predict we’re all dead by 2019
