Robot vacuum cleaners have come a long way when it comes to mopping, but the 3i S10 Ultra robot vacuum might just blow them out of the water. While most high-end robot vacuums have clean and dirty water tanks, the 3i sub-boils the wastewater at the base station separating out the dirt and recycling the now clean water to be used again.
All solid waste is added to the dustbag, while the water is cleaned through condensation and dehumidification and added back to the water tank. The manufacturer implies that you’ll never have to refill the water tank. Ever. Out of all the robovac maintenance, emptying and refilling water tanks isn’t the most cumbersome of tasks, even if the dirty water does develop a stank almost immediately. Still if it lives up to the promise, the technology used here could deliver the ideal robot vacuum experience - total autonomy.
Apart from the innovative base station, the 3i S10 Ultra has a roller mop head similar to what we see in two-in-one hard floor cleaners like the Dyson Wash G1 or the Roborock Flexi Pro. The roller self cleans during operation by spraying clean water on, and squeegeeing off the dirty water back into the dirty water catchment. The telescopic roller also slides out horizontally in order to clean up to 1mm from edges.
On the vacuuming front it utilises an anti-tangle roller design that has become prevalent in high-end robot vacuums this year. Every manufacturer is doing it slightly differently, and the S10 ultra uses a rubberised brush and a comb to detangle hair and let it get sucked into the dustbin. It also has what 3i is calling Green-eye Multi-Dimensional Detection which is a combination of green light illumination and AI object detection. The green light is similar to the Dyson detect range - it makes even small particle matter easier to see - while the AI is used to detect the type of debris and allow the S10 Ultra to change settings to tackle it best.
After its debut at CES earlier this year, the 3i S10 Ultra is almost ready to land on Kickstarter. Although there is no indication of pricing just yet, the manufacturer is offering a Super Early Bird Discount of 40% if you sign up to the mailing list and put down a $3 deposit. From here you can join me and the 20 other people in the Global Launch Facebook group, and get progress updates, deals, etc.
There are a lot of great ideas packed into the S10 Ultra, and like many products hoping to get off the ground there are a bunch of unanswered questions. How much will it cost? How much electricity will the cleaning process use and will it actually work? Will the object detection be good enough? And perhaps most importantly, will this project actually make it to consumers? Personally, I’m hopeful.
At every robot vacuum launch event this year the conversation has drifted to “whats next”. Now that most every brand has nailed edge cleaning, object detection, and self cleaning in its premium offering, it is hard (even for a group of tech nerds) to figure out where we go from here. We landed on fully integrated systems, like fridges attached directly to the water line, and while I still see that as an inevitable step in robovac development, it won’t work for everyone. What 3i is proposing here is truly innovative. It isn’t an iterative update that promises to be game-changing, it is an entirely new solution. I hope it comes to market, I hope it inspires other brands, I hope it actually works.
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