Battle of the robot vacuums

The competition among robotic vacuum cleaners has grown intense since the first Roomba rolled onto living room floors in 2002.

Now the Roomba’s maker, iRobot, is trying to fortify its early lead by taking an aggressive approach to what it considers copycats of its circular home rover.

The Massachusetts company has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to block imports from such competitors as Bobsweep and Ohio vacuuming icon Hoover on grounds the competing robots infringe on iRobot’s patents. A judge’s preliminary determination this summer was favorable to iRobot.

The company is also advancing the technological capabilities of its own Roomba lineup amid more serious competition from brands such as Neato Robotics, Dyson, Samsung, LG and Ecovacs Robotics.

A new $949 premium model, the Roomba i7, uses mapping technology to remember a home’s floor plan. That allows its owners to use voice commands and a Google or Amazon Alexa speaker to instruct it to clean a specific room. The new Roomba can also empty its own dirt bin, avoiding the dust cloud problem.

But a recent report from industry analyst Gartner says robotic vacuum sellers might need to distinguish themselves in other ways as the devices become increasingly common. Among the suggestions: reduce entry-level models to less than $200.

Sources: iRobot estimates; NPD; GfK Matt O’Brien; J. Paschke • AP