If you thought cleaning your touchscreen devices could not get any easier, think again! Takara Tomy has recently unveiled a new gadget that will keep your smartphone and tablet’s LCD screen clean so you do not have to.
Back in 1986, before iRobot’s Roomba series was available, Tomy released an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner of their own. Known as Dustbot, the cute robot would glide across the floor sucking up dust and dirt while its tiny arms swept back and forth with a small broom and dustpan. Though it was more of a toy than a legitimate cleaning robot, it did come packed with integrated sensors to keep it from falling off tabletops.
Decades later, Takara Tomy does it again with its AutoMeeS robot series. Measuring just 7 cm in diameter, the Auto Mee S glides across phone and tablet screens with its three underside tires and two rotating cleaning pads. The device, which runs for 3 hours on a single AA battery, is equipped with sensors that detect the edge of a screen so that it can quickly turn around and get back to cleaning. The Auto Mee S takes only 4 minutes to clean those dusty, greasy finger marks off of your smartphone and only 8 minutes for tablets. This is versus the three second wipe of a cloth, keep in mind.
Is this cute little gadget just another mere commodity? Maybe, but results are results. The Auto Mee S will be released in Japan on March 28th for the equivalent of $17 USD. So, if you’re in serious need of some help cleaning your tablet, look no further. For the price, it sounds like fun to watch it move across the screen.
Though I would have like to see Takara take it a bit further, and give the bots some interactivity with the screen itself. Like following way-points or a map. Best yet, I would have loved to draw a maze and see how long it take for it to find the way through. Perhaps…. this is something I should look into making…
Cabe
All images (via Takara Tomy)
http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/automee/