CES 2011: Scooba Slims Down

The original Scooba floor cleaning robot never caught on, but a trimmer version is on the way.

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CES 2011: Scooba Slims Down

The original Scooba floor cleaning robot never quite caught on like Roomba, its carpet-cleaning sibling. It was big, bulky, and kind of a mess to deal with—you had to wrestle to get clean water in and dirty water out, and it sometimes left floors soaking wet, not so bad for vinyl or tile, but not so good for hardwood.

That left an opening for other approaches to floor cleaning robots, like the Mint from Evolution Robotics.

But Scooba is back. The Scooba 230 announced at the 2011 CES in Las Vegas is smaller, cheaper at $300, and its tiny tanks are easier to fill and empty. At 16 cm in diameter and 9 cm high, the company says, it can get into small spaces and around furniture, but it can still scrub 14 square meters in a session.

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