Why have robotic vacuum cleaners been around for 20 years, yet 90% of Chinese households are still on the sidelines?

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When leaving work and opening the door home, Yezi smelled a strange odor.

It turned out that the home robot vacuum had dragged the puppy’s waste across half the living room, and even the base station was contaminated. What was originally an automatic cleaning session turned into a messy scene where she wore a mask to clean the floor and the machine.

Such experiences are not uncommon. Wires, toys, transparent vases, thresholds, low furniture, and chair legs are variables that a robot vacuum must face once it enters a real home. It should reduce household chores, but if it misjudges, small problems can turn into big ones.

This is also the awkwardness of the robot vacuum industry. After years of competition, market penetration remains below 10%. The core issue is that while it proves “machines can vacuum,” it has not sufficiently proven “users can trust leaving the floors to the machine.”

Behind the low penetration rate lies a lack of trust.

I. Users are hesitant, not because they don’t need it, but because they don’t trust it

What a robot vacuum truly faces is not a standard floor, but a dynamic home.

These dynamic variables determine that a robot vacuum cannot just perform “suction” + “mopping,” but must also judge the environment, recognize risks, plan routes, handle corners, and disturb people as little as possible.

In recent years, industry competition has focused heavily on parameters: increasing suction power, changing mop forms, adding functions to the base station, expanding SKUs, and making product combinations more complex. Improving parameters is meaningful, but it doesn’t fully address users’ most concerned issues:

Will it knock over vases?

Will it get tangled in wires?

Will it kick up cat litter?

Will it get stuck at thresholds?

Will it miss under cabinets and around table and chair legs?

Will the base station smell bad after a few uses?

If these problems cannot be reliably solved, it’s hard to gain user confidence.

The reason why robot vacuums have not yet become as basic home appliances as refrigerators or washing machines is precisely because of this.

Therefore, the next phase of competition for robot vacuums is not about “how powerful it looks,” but about “how little trouble it causes during use.”

II. DJI’s solution: fewer re-cleanings, fewer rescue operations, less maintenance

Against this backdrop, DJI’s entry into the robot vacuum market is particularly noteworthy.

As the absolute leader in consumer drones worldwide, DJI has quickly dominated the action camera and handheld imaging device markets as well. Every new sector it enters, it manages to become a leader—not by luck, but through a set of transferable capabilities: spatial perception, environment recognition, motion control, and system engineering. When applied to home floors, these capabilities correspond to obstacle avoidance, path planning, coverage, and stability—precisely the core experience issues of robot vacuums.

Recently launched, the new product ROMO 2 embodies this capability in practice.

Its product logic revolves around three keywords: fewer re-cleanings, fewer rescue operations, less maintenance.

1. Obstacle avoidance: turning “tidy up the floor before starting” into an optional step

Many users discover only after buying a robot vacuum that they need to do a “pre-clean”: pick up wires, gather toys, move small objects to prevent the machine from getting stuck, miscolliding, or dragging items away.

This is the core pain point often criticized about robot vacuums. Due to insufficient recognition accuracy, they either bump into transparent glass vases or avoid them too early, leaving large areas waiting for manual re-cleaning.

Especially in homes with children and pets, the environment is often less controllable. LEGO pieces, cards, wires, and cat toys can appear on the floor at any time.

ROMO 2’s obstacle avoidance approach clearly continues DJI’s drone technology path. It uses millimeter-level sensing, active light sources, and new obstacle avoidance algorithms to improve recognition of transparent objects, tiny items, and low obstacles.

More importantly, it doesn’t just “see obstacles and go around,” but first judges the type and position of objects, then decides whether to approach, pause, or detour. For example, when encountering glass, mirrors, or wires, it handles more cautiously, reducing collisions, entanglements, and misdragging.

The experience change is straightforward: users no longer need to clear the floor before each start, and the vacuum no longer acts like a semi-automatic device that needs constant supervision.

2. Overcoming obstacles: not brute force, but graceful “lifting the leg”

A common embarrassment for robot vacuums is getting stuck on thresholds, floor tracks, or sliding door tracks.

These items are almost invisible to humans but can be insurmountable for the machine. It may get stuck at kitchen or balcony doors, ultimately requiring someone to move it. Many users even have to install ramps, which increases costs and disrupts the home’s overall aesthetic.

ROMO 2’s approach is not “hard冲,” but first identifies obstacle height and position, then uses dynamic adaptive mechanical legs to overcome them. Depending on the scenario, it can choose synchronized dual-wheel overcomes or adopt a “bar crossing” step-by-step method.

Its dual-layer obstacle crossing ability reaches 8.5cm. This means many thresholds, tracks, and height differences that previously required manual intervention can now be handled by the machine itself.

For users, improved obstacle crossing isn’t about showing off but about enabling the vacuum to truly clean across zones. Kitchen, balcony, bathroom thresholds are no longer frequent “rescue points.”

3. Cleaning: from “can clean” to “smart cleaning”

People have long accepted that robot vacuums have blind spots and require manual re-cleaning.

There are roughly two types of blind spots: one is hard-to-reach areas like around table and chair legs, under cabinets, or below refrigerator doors; the other is scenes that are difficult to clean thoroughly, such as mixed dry and wet trash. The most typical scenario is a child knocking over breakfast, spilling milk, with cereal scattered around.

For the first type of blind spot, ROMO 2 mainly uses laser radar and an ultra-long external mechanical arm.

The arm extends coverage by 7.8cm. Coupled with an independent TOF laser radar, it can more accurately perceive the environment, judge whether the front is irregular furniture, table or chair legs, or cabinet edges, and adjust the extension angle accordingly for quick cleaning of blind spots.

For example, in the dining room, ROMO 2 can circle around table and chair legs, easily cleaning debris on the floor, without causing collisions that move furniture, and more precisely removing residues. Users no longer need to move chairs or clear the floor beforehand, nor do they need to re-clean.

The second blind spot, caused by complex ground environments, requires the machine to evolve both mentally and physically.

ROMO 2 enhances AI recognition to accurately identify various types of dirt and debris, matching different cleaning schemes. This is a industry first.

For example, when detecting cat litter, it reduces movement speed and side brush rotation to approach carefully and avoid scattering. When detecting liquid stains, it first bypasses, cleans surrounding dry trash, then returns to clean with a mechanical arm, following a “U” shape trajectory, avoiding dragging dirt onto itself.

4. Self-cleaning capability: no need for you to worry

A previously overlooked issue with robot vacuums is that after cleaning, the trouble often shifts to the user.

While the mop seems to be washed clean, residual dirty water, hair, and tiny debris may remain in the base station, corners, and water channels. Over time, the base station can develop stickiness and odors, requiring users to manually disassemble and wipe the chassis and dead corners.

High maintenance frequency turns “vacuuming and mopping” into “serving the vacuum.”

ROMO 2 emphasizes “365 days of maintenance-free operation,” targeting this problem.

It uses a base station self-cleaning system to reduce residue and manual cleaning frequency, minimizing wastewater spillage during cleaning, and improving the thoroughness of base station rinsing. For example, the base adopts materials less prone to dirt accumulation, combined with high-pressure water, suction, and airflow systems to automate mop cleaning, wastewater discharge, and base station cleaning.

These technical details may not be obvious in daily use, but they determine the outcome: after cleaning, the machine doesn’t need further cleaning by the user. This is the true value of “less maintenance.”

5. Detailing: carpets, hair, and appearance

In more specific home scenarios, ROMO 2 also features targeted designs.

For example, carpet cleaning uses 36,000Pa concentrated suction and intelligent boost to handle dust and debris deep in fibers. For pet owners or those with long hair, it employs dual-disk mops and a double-layer coverage structure to reduce hair tangling and missed spots.

In appearance, ROMO 2 adopts a transparent design, distinguishing it from traditional robot vacuums. Since it is a long-term household appliance, appearance is not just about aesthetics but also about whether it can naturally blend into the home environment.

Overall, ROMO 2 is not simply stacking more parameters. It’s more like translating DJI’s spatial perception, obstacle avoidance, and system engineering capabilities into specific home cleaning experiences: fewer re-cleanings, less rescue, and less maintenance.

This is what makes DJI’s entry into this market most worth watching.

III. The industry’s real competition should be about trust

Any frequently used appliance first needs to solve a problem: building trust. But currently, many users are stuck at the first step: not knowing who to trust.

Brand strength is fundamental. According to Ipsos research, 77% of global respondents prefer to trust familiar brands’ new products. That is, before engaging with a specific product, they rely on the brand to make decisions. When trust is strong enough, users may not spend much time researching parameters. This is one of DJI’s advantages entering the robot vacuum field.

Over the past 20 years, DJI has maintained a leading position in the global consumer drone market; in the past three years, it has also become a top player in handheld smart imaging devices. The Pocket 3 has sold over ten million units, and the recent launch of Pocket 4 has quickly gained market attention. During this process, DJI has built a unique brand culture and appeal.

Based on brand strength, DJI excels at applying its technological accumulation to new fields, bringing fresh solutions to the industry.

It also listens well.

During the development of ROMO 2, the team collected extensive user feedback, such as requests for it to display drying time like a washing machine, or to add low-water reminders. All these features were eventually implemented.

In a competitive and patient-demanding sector like robot vacuums, DJI’s long-term vision reduces industry noise, returning focus to user experience and forming a clearer product narrative: no parameter hype, no show-off, and establishing a “minimal intervention” core user experience. This may attract more users to try and gradually build trust.

Of course, whether a single product can change the industry still requires longer-term validation. A robot vacuum is not a product for a launch event; repurchase rates, retention, idle rates, and word-of-mouth are the real tests.

The development of the smartphone industry might serve as a reference.

Before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, global smartphone penetration was only about 5%, and most products had bulky physical keyboards with complex operations. The iPhone made a bold simplification: removing the physical keyboard, replacing buttons with a touchscreen, returning to core user experience—making calls, browsing the web, listening to music.

The story that followed is well known. People now often use “iPhone moment” to define key turning points in various industries.

This is also one of the reasons why ROMO 2 is worth close attention. It refocuses the product on user experience, making it simpler, easier to use, and more stable—just like the original approach of the iPhone.

As robot vacuums shift from parameter competition to trust competition, how will a company with technological and cross-industry capabilities reorganize cleaning, obstacle avoidance, maintenance, and interaction experiences? Will it bring an “iPhone moment” to the robot vacuum industry?

Epilogue

Yezi’s awkward cleaning incident was not a sign of complete user disillusionment with robot vacuums, but a reflection of the real challenge this category must face: home is not a laboratory.

In real homes, there are pets, toys, wires, thresholds, furniture gaps, and unexpected accidents. Whether a robot vacuum can clean thoroughly is only the first step; understanding the environment, avoiding risks, covering corners, completing self-cleaning, and causing minimal trouble are what determine if it can become a reliable household helper.

With parameters now quite advanced, the next phase of competition ultimately boils down to a more fundamental question: do users dare to leave their floors to it?

Who can consistently achieve fewer re-cleanings, fewer rescue operations, and less maintenance will have the opportunity to truly influence the 90% of Chinese households still on the sidelines.