The Robotic Vacuum’s Subsequent Humble Trick: Climbing Stairs

Stair-climbing robotic vacuums are literally about to be a actuality, kind of. That’s courtesy of a bit child development at IFA 2025 of robotic vacuums slipping into one thing extra climbable—a bit caddy that carries them upstairs when it’s time to maneuver flooring, then waits to hold them again down after they’re completed. The primary one we encountered was the Eufy MarsWalker.

Then, it turned out that Dreame had one, too, utilizing nearly the very same method, solely it’s weirdly a lot scarier-looking. Each have a kind of Half-Life headcrab vibe, however the place the MarsWalker actually seems to be like, properly, a robotic meant to stroll on Mars, Dreame’s model, the Cyber X, seems to be like it might be the almost identical-to-the-hero villain if the 2 shared a Nineteen Nineties Saturday morning cartoon collection. As an alternative of the glossy stalks that the MarsWalker makes use of to tug itself onto stairs, the Cyber X has what can solely be described as chainsaw palms—as a result of Dreame elected to place the tank tread bits on the gadget’s little legs, not its physique.

The 2 principally work the identical means; robotic vacuum meets stair-climbing caddy and climbs in. They roll to the steps and the caddy probes for the underside step, then stretches out in back and front to roll up the steps. There are gentle variations within the execution right here: whereas the MarsWalker doesn’t prolong its little arms till it reaches the steps, the Dreame robotic stands up on all fours to method them.

Getting again down the steps appeared a bit extra precarious for the Cyber X than for the MarsWalker. Within the (very sped-up) GIF above and one other video I noticed on-line, it had bother conserving itself straight, and I frightened that it would go tumbling. I didn’t really feel that means concerning the MarsWalker.

I don’t know who truly got here up with the thought first, however both means, the method looks like a winner. However there’s one other means, as robotic vacuum and lawnmower firm Mova confirmed me. The Mova Zeus 60, which seems to be like a Eighties VCR or vinyl turntable (complimentary), raised itself up on little scissor-lift legs, then slid its little physique ahead like a robotic tongue, drew its legs up, and slid these ahead to hitch the remainder of it on the steps, then repeated this for every step, and in reverse on the way in which down.

It took an agonizing six minutes to finish. One in all Mova’s engineers, who was on the Mova sales space, watching with me, assured me that it can go sooner, however that the workforce determined to run it slower for security causes. I’ll settle for that, nevertheless it must go fairly a bit sooner to catch its competitors—Dreame’s robotic bought down and again up its stair set in near 2.5 minutes. Eufy’s MarsWalker managed it in simply 1 minute and 45 seconds. However Mova might need a bonus—in line with that very same engineer, it could possibly deal with spiral staircases simply high quality. Then once more, as assured as he sounded, it might have been a fantastic energy transfer for the corporate to arrange a bit spiral staircase to show it. Possibly it could possibly do it and Mova selected to not present it off—constructing a spiral staircase for the present is a bit more sophisticated than the straight up-and-down variety. Or possibly it’s not all that good at spiral staircases.

It’ll be attention-grabbing to see how these stair climbers shake out after they make it into reviewers’ grubby palms. Representatives from all three corporations confirmed to me that the plan is to launch their gadgets inside the subsequent 12 months; none would reveal pricing. Possibly it hasn’t been determined, or they’re every simply ready to see what the opposite does.

Nonetheless they do, none of those robots totally resolve the issue. However climbing stairs is a big first step. Or set of steps, I assume. The following process is getting them to truly clear the steps, one thing the vaporware-at-this-point Ascender was presupposed to do. And admittedly, I don’t care. Deliver me the stair-climbing robotic, please.