At CES this year we saw a handful of robots made for everything from companionship, to purse hanging, and while some are the stuff of nightmares most are undeniably adorable. Yet the robots already ubiquitous in households the world over are stuck in a one-size-fits-all, black or white, flying saucer design slump. Enough. It's time to make robot vacuum cleaners cute.
What exactly makes a robot cute will differ depending on the person, but there are some universally appealing characteristics. Biologically we are predispositioned to find infants of all types adorable, so as to encourage maternal and paternal protectiveness. According to Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s 1943 ‘baby schema’ the features we tend to gravitate towards are; a large head relative to the body, chubby cheeks, a high forehead, a small nose and mouth, and rounder bodies. We do, in fact, see these features replicated in existing household robots like Samsung’s Ballie, and LG’s Self-Driving AI Home Hub.
As it stands your typical robot vacuum cleaner doesn’t have any of the physical elements required for cuteification, but their bumbling personalities do play a role. According to Psychology Today, acts that activate the parental care system are the most likely to result in us finding something endearing. So when a robot vacuum is struggling, or does something dumb, we are more likely to find it cute. To make robot vacuum cleaners cute we need to combine these attributes, and what better way than to adopt the Little AI Guy aesthetic.
Realistically robot vacuum cleaner brands are the best positioned to make household robots. They’ve already got the robotics part down, the navigation, the AI object detection, and perfunctory voice assistants. Some robovacs even have arms, and can kind of climb stairs. All the building blocks to create a functional, and adorable little robot are right there, and yet they all look like coffee pucks covered in resin. There is no reason robot vacuum cleaners couldn’t take on more personality. Add some expressive LED eyes into a bulbous frame, an integrated conversational chatbot, and more battery power, and now we’re really anthropomorphising with gusto.
I’m sure many designers would disagree. “Form follows function” they cry! While I agree the smaller a robot vacuum is the better it can manouever the space, their helplessness will contribute to the cuteness factor. Plus limitations could encourage innovation. Samsung’s Ballie couldn’t get underneath your bed, and LG’s Self-Driving AI Home Hub might have a hard time getting around chairs, but solutions to these issues are already in their infancy. We’re already seeing extendable mops for edge cleaning, but what if those could extend even further? What if an additional vacuum nozzle could extend and retract out of the body of the robot? With more internal space on the unit itself, it could be possible.
For more than 20 years robot vacuum manufacturers have brought consistent, and valuable upgrades to their devices. They’ve been pragmatic, useful, and game changing for home maintenance, but the door is open for something different. Something that blends fun with functional innovation.