Here’s a robot that claims to take the huff and puff out of vacuuming – and it’s all thanks to Artificial Intelligence.
The Whiz can clean up to 1,500 square metres (the size of three basketball courts) in three hours, on one charge. It can be programmed to clean 600 routes, stores images from built-in cameras – and sensors help it avoid people and other unexpected obstacles.
The Whiz, now being hailed as one answer to a shortage of human cleaners, trundles around at just over 1mph. It’s eyes are a bit like Henry Hoover’s, but it is taller at just over 2ft.
It’s a lot dearer too – and will clean out £21,646 from your wallet.
But, a bit like the Daleks in Dr Who, it can’t tackle stairs.
And cleaning guru Aggie MacKenzie, from Channel 4 show How Clean Is Your House?, says Mrs Mops shouldn’t be too worried about being sidelined. She says: “Robots are a long way off replacing humans. It’ll take a long time for them to produce one that can do everything.”
The Whiz has been around a while. But its creators say latest versions – now available in Europe and with touch screen built into a slide-away handle – are “reinventing commercial cleaning”. It works on carpets, while a sister machine – the Scrubber 50 – cleans and polishes hard floors.
Tokyo-based Softbank Robotics says: “Smart technology has the potential to help the cleaning industry on all fronts.
“Automated, intelligent robots can plug the labour gap by supporting cleaning teams experiencing shortages.”
That could help in the UK, where numbers seeking cleaning jobs have dwindled post-Brexit.
New figures show just 43,000 EU citizens received visas for work, family, study or other purposes in the UK in 2021.
And 225,000 EU Settlement Scheme applications are still awaiting an outcome.
British Cleaning Council chairman Jim Melvin said: “Firms cannot get the staff and given the triple effect of the Immigration Act, Brexit and the pandemic, it is arguably unprecedented. During the pandemic, we’ve seen how essential good standards of cleanliness and hygiene are to protecting the public from the most recent virus, and now that is being threatened because we are struggling to recruit the staff.”
