Matic robot vacuum gets voice and gesture control with 'Matic Cues'

Matic, a robot vacuum, has launched a new feature called Matic Cues, which adds voice and gesture control. The update is available starting August 13, and the robot's price will increase from $1,245 to $1,495 on September 9. Gesture control is a standout feature, developed by the company's co-founders, who are computer vision engineers from Google Nest. It uses the robot's five cameras and works entirely on-device. Users can wake the robot with 'Hey Matic,' point at a mess, and say 'clean here.' The robot can also follow the user. The built-in voice assistant understands natural language commands, including complex ones like 'vacuum the inside of the carpet' and chained commands like 'clean the kitchen, vacuum the living room, and then mop the bathroom.' Commands are processed using the Gemini API, and while the wake word is on-device, any command after is sent to the cloud, anonymized, according to the company. Matic Cues is opt-in, and users can turn it and the microphones off in settings. The company plans to bring the top 20-30 most-used commands on-device in the future.