Robots have gone from the stuff of science fiction to overpriced toys, to… rather cheap toys designed to perform menial tasks that you don’t have time for — like cleaning your phone or tablet screen.

Japan’s Takara Tomy has introduced a $17 Roomba-like robot designed to slide around the display of your phone or tablet until it’s shiny as new. It’s called the Auto Mee S, and it’s kind of awesome and kind of ridiculous.

Auto Mee S

The awesome part is that it’s a $17 robot that actually does something kind of useful. The ridiculous part is that there’s almost no way it actually saves you any time: It takes up to 4 minutes to clean a phone screen and 8 minutes to clean a tablet. You could do the same thing with a microfiber cloth and a few seconds to spare.

The Auto Mee S runs for up to 3 hours on a AA battery and it can detect the edges of your device to keep from falling off a 0.5 inch cliff.

It should launch on March 28th in Japan.

via Gizmodo and Akihabara News

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8 replies on “Too busy to clean your tablet screen? Here’s a $17 robot that does it for you”

  1. @Jörg, ifbthese could work in concert to clean the floor I’d happily buy a dozen or two (and invite the neighbours with cats to come over to play).

  2. I see this more as a toy to keep in the lounge room and pull out to show guests for a laugh. For the price its pretty much worth it.

  3. I always thought that this would make a whole lot more sense than one big Roomba. Have an army of little ones cleaning your house, they can get into the corners a lot easier, under furniture, and it’s a whole sight more fun to trip and fall over them. Imagine kittens being chased around by an army of mindless cleaning bots? Oh teh horrorz!

  4. Sounds like using a toy train set to take food from the kitchen to the dining room.

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