Research by Roborock shows nearly half of Australians admit they put off cleaning their oven or airfryer, begging the question - where are the oven cleaning robots? Robot cleaning devices are popping up more and more. They’re vacuuming the house, mowing the lawn, cleaning the windows, sweeping the pool, lint rolling the couch, and yet the oven - which 47% of those surveyed avoid cleaning - is robotless.
The gadget closest to an oven cleaning robot is the Grillbot which debuted a decade ago at CES. The tiny robot skirts across your barbecue, cleaning the grills with rotating nylon brushes. It would of course still work in an oven, but the little guy is relatively basic in the land of robotics, and can’t handle much more than grill grates and a flat stone.
Robot vacuum giant Roborock, who commissioned the research, has nothing of the sort in the works, but Founder and CEO Richard Chang says they are looking for ways to help people maintain their homes.
Ovens aside, floor maintenance is the worst offender with 44% of respondents neglecting vacuuming and 40% avoiding mopping. This is an area where we have plenty of robot helpers available, including devices from Roborock itself, naturally.
Over the past year robot vacuums have drastically increased in intelligence and cleaning efficiency. Throughout our testing we found that high end robovacs from Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, and Eufy have all been capable of high quality, independent vacuuming and mopping thanks to better navigation, object detection, and hardware innovations like zero-tangle rollers and all inclusive cleaning stations. They have however, gotten significantly more expensive with most of these devices retailing close to $3,000.
The data shows that 27% of people would be happy to never clean their floors or carpets again, but how much they would be willing to pay for the privilege wasn’t covered. Our own data suggests that the $3,000 price point is too dear, with more Reviews.org Australia readers being interested in robot vacuums under $500. Budget devices like these however can be a double edged sword. Most are older models, with lower suction, worse obstacle avoidance, and are generally more hands-on. The labour swaps from cleaning the floor to cleaning the robot vacuum. An eye for an iRobot.
Regardless, for those looking to outsource a range of cleaning tasks, there is a robot out there designed to do it. Even if we still need to scrub our own ovens. For now.
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