Dyson has been up to something. It’s not entirely clear what, exactly, but the web is currently abuzz with speculation that the company might be on the cusp of releasing a robotic vacuum cleaner. Earlier today, the company posted a teaser video to YouTube that features choppy, intentionally-distorted imagery of roving floor bots, a person using a traditional vacuum, and quick cuts to what appears to be floor-navigation schematics. It’s all very cryptic, and the footage is cut together like the trailer for a crappy Paranormal Activity sequel (which we’re sure is also coming out soon), but when you stitch together all the clues, the suggestion is fairly clear. Check out the video below to see for yourself:
If these rumors and speculations turn out to be true, this would be a huge product release. Dyson has been known to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development on its products, sometimes just to improve one aspect or boost performance a little bit. Remember that time the company hired a team of 65 engineers and filed 410 different patents just to make a desk fan run quieter? This obsessive attention to detail has become something of a trademark for Dyson, so if the company were to release a robotic vacuum cleaner, it’s a fairly safe bet that it’d be the Rolls Royce of household robots.
Related: Toshiba’s new robo-vacuum has a self-emptying bin
It’s also worth noting that this teaser video comes roughly six months after Dyson formally announced that it was dropping more than $8M specifically into domestic robotics research. Six months is a pretty short timeframe to develop a product from scratch and bring it to market, but given Dyson’s previous experience with vacuum technology, as well as it’s vast resources, it’s not out of the question.
Stay tuned for the full release on September 4th — we expect big things!
