Robot vacuums can handle much of the cleaning needed at home, but none of them is able to clean multiple floors. The biggest and most obvious shortcoming of robot vacuums is of course that they can not climb stairs. Most of them have thankfully learned not to drop, but getting from one floor to another on their own has so far seemed like a distant dream.
It seems Dyson may be making the dream come true as a new public patent, published in the UK in early September, shows drawings indicating that they are working on a robot that can climb stairs.
Another patent published at the same time shows a robot hand that can open and close doors. The patents were first discovered by Bloomberg, which also cites an anonymous source at Dyson.
Dyson is best known for its fans, air purifiers, and handheld vacuum cleaners, but they do have a robot department that has been in operation for 16 years. Among other things, they have developed Dyson’s robot vacuum cleaner, the Dyson 360 Eye. In a crowded market with strong competition, it would make sense for them to research how to make a robot vacuum cleaner that can go up stairs, to be able to stand out from rivals like Roomba, eufy, and Xiaomi.
That being said, as is always the case with patent drawings, there is no guarantee that it will ever end up in an actual product, nor that the technology is anywhere close to reality. The only official statement Bloomberg got out of the company was a confirmation that “we file a lot of patents”, and that they “never comment on technologies we may or may not launch in the future.”
