iRobot, creator of the Roomba, hopes to sell the data its house-cleaning robots collect when they map your house.
Potential buyers include smart-home device manufacturers such as Amazon, Apple and Google, iRobot CEO Colin Angle told Reuters.
With regularly updated maps of floor plans and the layout of home furnishings, devices like security cameras and smart thermostats would have a better sense of how to operate.
“There's an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared,” Angle said.
Smart-home technology has been surging in the last few years, with everything from lamps to speakers to refrigerators getting connected to the internet. That's brought greater convenience and control — you can check your garage door, and close it, even as you're boarding a plane — but it's also ignited privacy and security concerns. Maybe you're not the only one who'll be fiddling with those controls, or keeping tabs on what goes on in your house.
iRobot said it's mindful of customers' privacy and security.
“We will always ask your permission to even store map data. Right now, iRobot is building maps to enable the Roomba to efficiently and effectively clean your home,” iRobot said in an emailed statement. “In the future, with your permission, this information will enable the smart home and the devices within it to work better. For example, in order for the lights to turn on when you walk into a room, the home must know what lights are in which rooms.”
Full story at CNet
