Video navigation
Next, recall iRobot’s acquisition of Evolution Robotics late last year, which most recently resulted in the company’s new branded line of floor sweeping and mopping robots, dubbed “Braava.”
But in addition to the Braava, many investors forget with the acquisition also came notable intellectual property rights, including Evolution Robotics’ stable of industry leading visual navigation and simultaneous location and mapping technologies.
Translation? Don’t be surprised if iRobot soon announces the incorporation of inexpensive cameras in their robotic solutions, which will in effect allow their robots to rely less on physical bumpers and infrared sensors to navigate their surroundings. Instead — or perhaps in addition — the machines will be able to use video feeds to streamline their navigation efforts.
Stair-climbing robots… in your home
Finally, if iRobot wants Angle’s robotic butler dream to come to fruition, you can bet it would involve creating a way for its home robots to climb stairs.
That said, some of iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT)’s military bots have already tackled that task, including its Warrior, PackBot, and the 29-pound SUGV robots. As it stands, the Roomba has nifty cliff sensors that prevent it from falling down the stairs, but the real challenge would be to create one that could gently navigate residential staircases to perform tasks on all levels of your home.
Curiously enough, if you do a little digging you’ll see way back in the year 2000, iRobot was already offering a stair-climbing home robot called the iRobot LE, which could be used to remotely monitor your home or communicate with loved ones while you’re away through a Wi-Fi connection.
iRobot LE. Image source: iRobot.
However, at the steep price of roughly $4,995, they understandably didn’t fly off the shelves.
Foolish takeaway
Of course, that was long before iRobot went public in 2005, and investors can be thankful Angle is now intelligently building his business by taking things one step at a time, saying the company is now focused on the need to “pick applications that have real concrete value to customers, deliver on or exceed their expectations, and move on.”
Regardless of what people might hope, however, that’s a process that will likely take years for the desired results to materialize, so don’t expect iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) to take off overnight.
In the end, though, I’m still pleased with the company’s methodical growth, and this long-term focus is one of the very things that made me love iRobot from an investment perspective in the first place. That’s why, as long as the existing consumer business remains intact over the next few years, I still don’t plan on parting with my shares anytime in the near future.
The article Roomba Turns 11: Where Should iRobot Go From Here? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Steve Symington.
Fool contributor Steve Symington owns shares of iRobot . The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems and iRobot and owns shares of Northrop Grumman.
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