Matic Robot Vacuum Enhances Cleaning with Gesture and Voice Control Features

The Matic robot vacuum has undergone a significant upgrade with the introduction of Matic Cues, a feature that incorporates gesture and voice controls, allowing users to command their vacuum more intuitively than ever. Launched on August 13, 2023, at 2 PM ET, this enhancement enables users to simply point at messes or verbally instruct the vacuum to clean specific areas.

This innovative technology comes ahead of a price increase set for September 9, when the cost of the vacuum will rise from $1,245 to $1,495. Users can find the new Matic Cues option in the app under Settings. The founders, both computer vision engineers with a background at Google Nest cameras, have been developing this feature since 2017, ensuring it stands out in the robot vacuum market.

To activate the gesture control, users say “Hey, Matic” to wake the device, which then uses its five onboard cameras to recognize gestures. Users can point at a specific mess and issue commands like “clean here.” While the vacuum responds best when users crouch down to point, it can also be directed to follow them as they navigate to areas needing attention.

Unlike traditional spot-cleaning methods that rely on app-drawn zones, Matic's gesture control offers greater precision. Additionally, the robot understands various natural language commands, thanks to its use of the Gemini API, allowing for instructions such as “vacuum the inside of the carpet” or “clean just the hard floors.” Initial testing revealed that it could accurately interpret multiple chained commands, enhancing its usability with phrases like “clean the kitchen, vacuum the living room, and then mop the bathroom.”

Matic’s voice assistant performs efficiently, able to hear commands from a distance, although there is a slight delay before it begins to execute them. Notably, while the “Hey Matic” wake word is processed on-device, subsequent commands are sent to the cloud, raising privacy considerations. However, Matic assures users that commands are anonymized and plans to transition the most popular commands to local processing in the future.

Source: www.theverge.com