Cleaning

A lot of thought has gone into making Lumi the ultimate toilet brush. Its battery-powered base UV-sanitizes the brush after use, and evaporates off any drip water. It's weighted, so it's hard to knock over, and it opens and closes itself. If it wasn't a toilet brush, you'd eat your dinner off it.

​Dirt and grime in the grooves can result in a less than crystal clear listening experience when spinning vinyl. Record cleaning machines can help, but if you don't have the time for regular vinyl maintenance the SugarCube SC-1 can help strip the signal of its snap, crackle and pop.​

If you're dirty and sweaty from performing an outdoor activity, it's understandable that you don't want to drive home that way. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take a hot shower first? Well, the portable Geyser System lets you do so – depending on how you define the word "shower."

The Sonic Soak is designed to act like a tiny, portable washing machine, using sound waves to clean clothes – including your delicates – as well as jewelry, toothbrushes, cutlery, baby items, fruit, veggies and basically whatever else can be thrown into a tub of water with it.

Bar-shaped soap is great for sliding into your palm and all over your body, but as we all know it can be hard to keep a good handle on. Tetra Soap is a clever new solution to this little dilemma, taking the form of a tetrapod to more easily remain in your grasp.

No matter how well you care for your collection, records can be insatiable magnets for surface dust and groove-filling micro particles. A retro-cool machine called the Degritter uses ultrasound to get into the grooves and rejuvenate treasured vinyl.​

For a vacuum, sucking at a job is a good thing. The Deebot N79S is aimed towards low-pile carpeting and solid surface flooring, and does a reasonably good job of everyday maintenance on those floors. Its connectivity with Amazon’s Alexa, though, leaves a little to be desired.

​Cleaning the toilet is one of those jobs that nobody likes. Wouldn't it be better if toilets could just, you know … clean themselves? Well, the creators of the SpinX are claiming that their device will allow your toilet to do just that.

​Dirty floors seem like just the kind of dull task that robots were made for. The latest droid to which we can delegate mopping duties is the Everybot RS700, which uses a bunch of sensors to cleverly seek out dirty spots in the dark and stay on the straight and narrow. ​

​Sometimes, we end up focusing on fruitless pursuits that we should really just let go of. Well, the next time that you find yourself aware of being in such a situation, try washing your hands. According to scientists, doing so helps us to give up old goals and start pursuing new ones.

​Singapore's Housing & Development Board recently called for proposals to automate the painting of its high-rise buildings. In response, ELID Technology International and Nanyang Technological University teamed up to create a robotic system that does the job.

​When oil is spilled into the ocean, clean up efforts can focus on the surface, but plumes of subsurface oil are harder to recover. The Oleo Sponge is a new type of foam that can not only soak up oil that has dispersed throughout water, but can be wrung out to reuse both the material and the oil.