400,000 Vacuum Bots by 2006?

Posted 11 Nov 2003 at 06:08 UTC by The Swirling Brain

CNN has an article touting Hitachi's vacuum robot. Yeah, yeah, "big deal" I said to myself. But, what was really interesting to me; was that in the article it states that a UN study says that the vacuum cleaner robot sales are to soar to over 400k units by 2006. I'm aware that this has been reported before and also again back in the past, but when the numbers hit me... Wow! But, me without a robot vacuum company and in 2006 there'll be sales of 400k vacuum robots! That really... [no... I refrain]. Despite their high price tag, (well, actually the price of at least one isn't so bad) it appears that people love their home vacuum bots, and time is getting scarce. There could be also be as many as 125k lawn-mower bots, and up to 1.5 million robot toys like Sony's AIBO robotic dog in just a couple years. Wow, big numbers, I know, but still the magnatitude finally hit me and I guess I was a little stunned, and maybe it WAS a little surprising to me. Is it just me? I guess it's time for me to dust off my vacuum bot designs and get on the bandwagon - there's money to be made and time's a wastin.