AR vacuuming app makes sure you don't miss a spot

As VR/AR headsets become more and more common, they'll open up all sorts of opportunities to "gamify" what's happening in the real world. Here's a fun example: an app that tracks your vacuum, showing which bits of floor you have and haven't done.

The app, apparently built for Oculus Quest hardware, determines what's floor and what's not, and overlays a green color over the unvacuumed floor. It then tracks your vacuum head, presumably using cameras as well as a Quest motion controller, which you hold with the vacuum, and erases that green overlay wherever it determines the vacuum has been.

It's not the flashiest example of gamification – but it demonstrates what's possible, and with what would appear to be the tough bit already worked out, there's no reason it couldn't be tarted up to look a lot more fun.

This "spatial vacuuming" project is a "random experiment" from one Daniel Beauchamp, a Principal AR/VR Engineer at Shopify, who worked it up in his spare time. But it's clearly struck a chord with people who don't have a systematic approach to vacuuming – and probably anyone who's tried to teach their kid to run the Hoover around the floor too.

It's not hard to imagine a similar approach to make lawn mowing, window cleaning, surface wiping ... and all sorts of other chores that humanoid home assistants and other AI robots will likely relegate to the annals of history within a decade – at least, for folks that can afford them. Fun stuff!

Source: Daniel Beauchamp