Dyson has unveiled its first robot vacuum cleaner, the 360 Eye. The key feature of the robot is in the name: a large 360-degree panoramic camera 'eye' at the top which can see everything around it.
Using a combination of the camera and infrared sensors the vacuum is able to create a digital blueprint of the house using key landmarks to help it navigate.
The camera at the top runs at 30 frames per second, which in conjunction with the speed means the 360 Eye -- rather terrifyingly -- is aware of its surroundings to within a single mm.
To help get this level of precision Dyson's early prototypes analysed over 1.5 billion images.
Dyson believes this solves one of the most common problems with other robot vacuum cleaners which is that because they can't see, they end up missing parts of the house.
To help it get around Dyson has ditched wheels in favour of powerful tank tracks. These have the advantage of being able to cover almost any surface without leaving wheel marks on hard surfaces.
16-years in the making, the 360 Eye features all of the trademark technology that you'd expect from a Dyson product including the company's powerful V2 Digital Motor, Radial Root Cyclone technology and a newly developed carbon fibre brush which is able to pick up the finest dust.
At this stage we should probably point out that thankfully it isn't completely self-aware. You can control the 360 Eye using Dyson's new Link App for iPhone and Android which lets you schedule a clean, check on how it's doing and more.
So when will this home appliance of the future be arriving? Well it's set to launch in Japan initially in Spring 2015 and then to the rest of the world later next year.