Soon, your Roomba will work with Alexa

If you’ve ever wanted to talk to your vacuum or create a map of all the dirt in your house, you’re in luck.

Earlier today, robot vacuum pioneer iRobot unveiled a bunch of new features, including new dirt mapping software and compatibility with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.

{{ amazon name="iRobot Roomba 980 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner", asin="B013E9L4ZS", align="right" }} “These are exciting next steps towards our vision of an ecosystem of home robots that work collaboratively and further enable the smart home,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot.

The new features will be available on all 900 Series connected Roomba vacuums, including the iRobot Roomba 980.

Clean Map, which is available for download today as part of the iRobot Home app, builds a virtual map of all the dirt and debris in your home. During cleaning, the vacuum uses Roomba’s dirt detector to collect data on where it spent the most time cleaning. Later, it uploads that information to iRobot’s smartphone app.

Roomba owners can map the total space that’s been cleaned, zoom in on where the robot found the most filth, and get push notifications when the vacuum is done.

Additionally, Roomba 900 owners will soon be able start and stop their vacuums using voice commands through Amazon’s Alexa interface. For example, owners of compatible iRobot vacuums and Alexa devices can say commands like, “Alexa, ask Roomba to begin cleaning.”

Check out the Reviewed.com guide to what works with Alexa

Full integration between compatible iRobot vacuums and Alexa devices is expected to take place this spring.

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