Tackling the dull, dirty, routine maintenance tasks, iRobot has done well for itself among U.S. consumers and is making gains overseas, even to the point of inspiring Roomba knock-offs aplenty in places like Hong Kong.
Besides the Roomba and variants (for workshops and for pet-filled households), iRobot has robots for washing the floor (the Scooba), cleaning the pool (the Verro), and getting the leaves out of the gutters (the Looj, seen here in action--the price ranges from $70 to $130).
The company also has a well-established government and industrial division, best known for the PackBot robots used for finding and neutralizing explosives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Photo by iRobot
Caption by Jonathan Skillings
