Different types of domestic robots

A domestic robot is a type of service robot, an autonomous robot that is primarily used for  house hold chores, but may also be used for education, entertainment or therapy. Thus far, there are only a few limited models, though speculators, such as Bill Gates, have suggested that they could become more common in the future. While most domestic robots are simplistic, some are connected to WiFi home networks or smart environments and are autonomous to a high degree.

Indoor robots

This type of domestic robot does chores around and inside homes. Different kinds include:

Robotic vacuum cleaners and floor-washing robots that clean floors with sweeping and wet mopping functions. Some use Swiffer or other disposable cleaning cloths to dry-sweep, or reusable microfiber cloths to wet-mop.

Dressman is a robot to iron shirts using hot air.

Cat litter robots are automatic self-cleaning litter boxes that filter clumps out into a built-in waste receptacle that can be lined with an ordinary plastic bag.

Rotimatic is a kitchen robot that makes rotis, tortillas, puris out of flour in just few minutes.

Security robots such as Knightscope have a night-vision-capable wide-angle camera that detects movements and intruders. It can patrol places and shoot video of suspicious activities, too, and send alerts via email or text message; the stored history of past alerts and videos are accessible via the Web. The robot can also be configured to go into action at any time of the day.

Outdoor robots

Outdoor robots are domestic robots that perform different chores that exist outside of the house.

Robotic lawn mowers are one type of outdoor robot that cut grass on their own without the need for a driver. Some models can mow complicated and uneven lawns that are up to three-quarters of an acre in size. Others can mow a lawn as large as 40,000 square feet (3,700 m²), can handle a hill inclined up to 27 degrees.

There are also automated pool cleaners that clean and maintain swimming pools autonomously by scrubbing in-ground pools from the floor to the waterline in 3 hours, cleaning and circulating more than 70 US gallons (260 l) of water per minute, and removing debris as small as 2 µm in size.

Gutter-cleaning robots such as Looj use brushes and rubber blades to remove debris from rain gutters; users operate the device using a remote.