The Rulo is Panasonic’s answer to the Roomba

Roombas have been around long before this talk of robots taking over our homes started to become more of a reality, and now Panasonic is looking to challenge the Roomba’s dominance over the automated vacuum market with the Rulo, a triangular robot with rounder corners that the company claims provide a level of in-depth cleaning that a Roomba simply cannot match.

If you’ve ever seen a Roomba do its thing, you know the robotic vacuum has one design flaw: Its round shape makes it miss a little triangle of space at the corners of the room. That’s the spot where cat hair goes to die in my apartment, so it requires a little manual attention post Roomba sweep. Panasonic is getting in on the robotic vac market with the release of its MC-RS1 Rulo, a bot it hopes will solve the corner issue. The Rulo is triangular but with rounded corners; it promises a “firm cleaning” to “penetrate up to the corner of the room,” according to the Google translation of the press release.