For Dyson, the 360 Eye robot vacuum is only the beginning

Dyson's 360 Eye robot vacuum is going global, with retail availability in Canada today, and a U.S. launch following soon. I spoke to Dyson's Lead Robotics Engineer Mike Aldred about the vacuum, which has been in development at the company long before its Japanese debut last year – in fact, the project dates back 18 years to 1998. But true advances takes time, and the tech behind Dyson's first robot vacuum is nothing if not advanced. The 360 Eye vacuum boasts a sophisticated 360-degree vision system that combines a top-mounted spherical camera with a pair of advanced sensors flanking the robot's'face,' and is designed to be much smarter than the competition from Roomba and others, as well as just offering better basic vacuum capabilities in terms of being able to pick up dirt, hair and dust. "Vision is absolutely critical, but it was a completely new technology [when development began]," Aldred told me, explaining the early days of 360 Eye's development.