By Chris Scott Barr

The whole point of a Roomba is to vacuum for you so that you don’t have to put in any physical labor. Well, someone in Japan with a little too much time figured out a way to put the vacuuming labor back into the Roomba. Why? I don’t think anyone really knows. There are always kudos for new ideas and thinking outside the box, but this really just leads to us being able to pantomime all of the chores we don’t like. Though we could completely avoid the chores altogether.

This thing is still pretty neat considering it’s self-defeating design. It has many different options other than normal back and forth. A plus side is that there may come a real life Chibi-Robo type game out of this. If you have no idea what that is, it’s about a robot who cleans things.

[ Ros-Robot ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Ilya Kochanov

Everyone loves robots. Everyone loves things that clean for you. And your wife doesn’t love cleaning. The aforementioned facts are exactly why the improvements in the new Roomba 500 Series are that much more awesome. Besides interchangeable face plates, a $300 starting price, and more room for all those crushed Doritos it’s bound to clean off your floor, the 500 Series features twice as much suckage. Neat! Check out a full comparison after the jump.

Roomba 570 $500

* Improved navigation and floor coverage
* Improved edge and corner cleaning
* Improved brushes and filters
* Improved anti-tangle technology
* Control Roomba remotely with the Wireless Command Center
* Schedule up to seven cleaning times
* Automatically returns to the self-charging Home Base™
* Most efficient room-to-room cleaning

Roomba 560 $350

* Improved navigation and floor coverage
* Improved edge and corner cleaning
* Improved brushes and filters
* Improved anti-tangle technology
* Schedule up to seven cleaning times
* Automatically returns to the self-charging Home Base
* Most efficient room-to-room cleaning

Roomba 530 $300

* Improved navigation and floor coverage
* Improved edge and corner cleaning
* Improved brushes and filters
* Improved anti-tangle technology
* Improved Virtual Wall blocks off-limit areas
* Automatically returns to its Home Base to dock and recharge

[ Roomba 500 Series ] VIA [ Uncrate ]