It's here! Now at least one part of all those futuristic shows has become a reality around the home. Well, don't get rid of your vacuum cleaner just yet, but yes, you can sit around and relax while the vacuuming gets done by itself, courtesy of the floor robot vacuum cleaner.

Man has exercised himself for hundreds of years thinking up ways and means of doing away with labor, manual in addition to mental. The concept of robots was conceived to do exactly that, by fulfilling projects man does not want to do without supervision. A robot vacuum cleaner achieves this by performing the vacuuming without a person being present. You can even instruct them to do their chore over a cell phone of through the Internet.

The floor cleaning robot utilizes the most current robotic techniques and logic to execute its job. It finds the soil on the floor or the rug and determines how many passes it needs to make over that area. The models that are available now are pretty small, intentionally, so that they can get under beds and settees.

These robot vacuum cleaners will move around static objects, and turn around mechanically when coming to the end of the room. This is done in one of several ways depending on the machine you buy. Sophisticated but costly models detect boundary conditions utilizing non-contact methods like infrared or ultrasonic. Lower cost vacuums will run into an object before turning away. Rubber bumpers are needed on these to keep from causing damage to the vacuum or your furniture and walls.

The robot vacuum cleaner does its task very well. It's not perfect as it will have small troubles in corners and along the baseboards. But generally it will be a large help around the home. You will still need to do some of the fine cleaning manually.

Other troublesome areas are fringed rugs and stairs. As a matter of fact, none commercially available can currently do your stairs. And most still can't realize that rug fringe will get drawn up and cause them to shut down. But as with all problems, resolutions will be approaching in the not to distant future.

The good news is that most robots currently available can handle a variety of surfaces from tile to wood to carpets. Pet hair and wet patches are not a problem, since the new machines are programmed to notice these things in addition to normal soil.

A robot vacuum cleaner has a built-in rechargable battery. When the battery charge is reduced, you'll get an alarm reminding you it's time to recharge. Some models release you from this job too, returning by themselves to a charging dock for a recharge. The cost will of course be determined by the list of features you want. The prices range from easily affordable to "Wow that is way over my budget."

The greatest advantage of the robot floor cleaner is that it frees you from diverting your time and attention to this nightly task. And getting some time back is something everyone can appreciate. A robot vacuum cleaner will need longer than a man or woman to get your floors clean. The best thing is to turn it on when you go to work. When you return home, you'll be returning to clean floors.

True, you still have the small matter of emptying the robot floor cleaner which is still your duty. That's nothing more than a minor inconvenience when you compare it to the advantage of having your vacuuming done mechanically. And if you dread the boring daily chore of vacuuming as much as most people, a robot vacuum cleaner is truly a worthwhile investment.