Makita is coming after your shopvac, hoping to make it obsolete.

Makita’s new RobotPRO robot vacuum, which was co-developed with Sharp, is designed for workshops, offices, warehouse floors, and production facilities. It has a hefty 2.5-liter dust bin and separate coarse and fine debris collection compartments. It won’t be able to pick up nails and screws or big pieces of wood, but sawdust and small debris shouldn’t be an issue.

The RobotPRO features a solid two-hour run-time thanks to two 18-volt, three-amp batteries that work sequentially. That means once one battery is dead, the other kicks in and allows the robot vacuum to continue on its way. The battery life can be extended to more than three hours with larger, more expensive five-amp batteries.

Robot Vacuum Comparison: Dyson 360 Eye vs. iRobot Roomba 980

Makita’s RobotPRO robot vacuum features two cleaning patterns: systematic and random cleaning. There are bump sensors, 8 ultrasonic sensors, a gyroscope to ensure straight traveling, 4 infrared sensors to prevent tipping over, “stack detection” wheel sensors and a geomagnetic sensor, and it comes with tape for creating no-go “invisible wall” barriers.

There’s a timer function, and also a remote control. The remote has a “body position announcement function” which helps you find the vacuum in a larger or obstacled space.

The Makita RobotPRO is much larger than the iRobot Roomba 980 and features a similar runtime. It’s also larger than the Dyson 360 Eye and features a much better run-time.

Unfortunately, the Makita’s RobotPRO robot vacuum is only available in Japan for $776. Let’s hope distribution eventually opens up worldwide.

[Source:] ToolGuyd