This is the craziest robot vacuum at the trade fair – actually, it's two
6.9.2026
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Lorenz Keller
A creative combination: The iRobot Duo consists of two cleaning robots. A large wet-dry vacuum cleaner also cleans carpets intensively, and a small standard robot vacuum.
With its barrel shape, the iRobot Duo looks more like a strange base station as it stands in the corner at the manufacturer's IFA booth. But suddenly, this thing starts moving.
Only then do I see the wheels and the roller. Indeed: the base station itself is also a robot that cleans the floor. It uses a six-centimeter-thick roller mop that scrubs with a pressure of 46 Newton meters. This is intended to give the robot the quality of a wet-dry vacuum cleaner. It vacuums up dry dirt, and the device dissolves everything else with hot steam – and then wipes it up.
iRobot demonstrates what the robot can do right at the booth: Spaghetti on the carpet? No problem. They end up in the dirt tank on the very first pass. The iRobot Duo then steams the residue out of the textile. And it immediately dries the floor with hot air afterwards.
Once the large areas are cleaned, the barrel robot stops. Then it lifts the top section with an arm and sets it down on the floor. This is the garage for the second robot. It drives out and cleans the area that its big brother cannot reach.
Compact climber for fine work
The iRobot Duo is currently just a concept. But I can see how serious the manufacturer is about it because a vacuum robot from the current range is being used: the Roomba Plus 575. It vacuums with 25,000 Pascals. The robot extends one of its two mops to the side to wipe edges and borders. It overcomes thresholds 3.5 centimeters high and, at only 8.35 centimeters tall, also fits under low furniture.
Both the rolling base and the small cleaning helper use Lidar sensors and cameras to detect and avoid obstacles. iRobot has given the washer-vacuum an additional camera. It measures rooms even better and detects stains as well as heavy soiling.
What is not visible at the trade fair: the two robots share a base station where they can refill fresh water and pump wastewater into a tank. The base station also vacuums up the dust, cleans the mops, and dries them. This reduces maintenance to a minimum.
Whether the duo will ever come to market in this form is unclear. However, I certainly think the manufacturer is capable of it; after all, they have already successfully launched a mini vacuum robot.
Lorenz Keller
Senior Editor
Lorenz.Keller@digitecgalaxus.chGadgets are my passion - whether you need them for the home office, for the household, for sport and pleasure or for the smart home. Or, of course, for the big hobby next to the family, namely fishing.
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