LG’s New RoboKing Vacuum Can Now Explain Its Failures

A handy new self-diagnostic mode helps LG’s Roboking keep you up to date on everything that’s going wrong with it

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LG’s New RoboKing Vacuum Can Now Explain Its Failures

LG’s RoboKing series of robot vacuums may or may not be variations on the Roomba theme to the extent that they’re not allowed to be sold here in the United States, where Roomba is the undisputed king (queen?) and reigns with a tight fist and lots of patents. But we have to give credit to LG for thinking outside the box disc when it comes to introducing nifty features. For example, unlike the Roomba, Mint, or Neato XV-11, the RoboKing navigates (and maps its environment) using a pair of cameras that scan the ceiling and the floor, which is a pretty neat trick:

The latest version of the RoboKing, announced just yesterday, adds a self-diagnostic mode where the robot actually checks itself out and tells you what’s up. Push the diagnostic button, and the robot will give itself a 30 second shakedown cruise and then report back (in a sultry female voice, no less) with the status of 14 different components. No word on just exactly what it’ll tell you, but I imagine something like, “that awful noise I’m making is because I just tried to eat one of your socks; please remove it before I explode.”

We don’t have too much else to go on at this point beyond that for those of you fortunate enough to live somewhere with less stringent patent enforcement, the LG RoboKing VR6172LM will be available soon for the equivalent of about $730.

Via [ Akihabara News ]

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