If you’ve been wondering when you could finally gamify your vacuuming routine after seeing one of the more viral AR videos on social mendia recently, Dyson has you covered, because it’s actually making the thing for iPhone and one of its patently pricey stick vacuums.

Shopify’s Principal XR Engineer Daniel Beauchamp is no stranger to prototyping weird and wild AR/VR input schemes, although you might be more familiar with his latest take on AR cleaning which made the rounds on social media earlier this year, which uses a Quest Pro with a Touch controller attached to the ad hoc ‘spatial vacuuming’ setup.

Now, it seems Dyson has caught wind of just how useful such an AR app would be by ostensibly introducing its own take on Beauchamp’s viral prototype.

Called Dyson CleanTrace, the AR vacuuming system is a mobile-based setup, which critically doesn’t use any sort of headset—rather an iPhone 12 Pro or greater, a custom phone holder, and Dyson Gen5detect stick vacuum ($900).

Check it out in action below:

Besides using a LiDAR-equipped iPhone for passthrough AR, another difference is how the app allows you to digitally ‘paint’ when cleaning areas instead of visually powerwashing them like Beauchamp’s prototype. To boot, the company claims it was actually inspired by its line of robotic 360 Vis NavT vacuums, however the resemblance is still pretty uncanny.

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“We realised that we could all learn a thing or two from the methodical cleaning approach of our robot vacuums. Unlike most humans doing the cleaning, Dyson robots know where they are in the room, where they have been, and where they have yet to go,” said Charlie Park, Dyson Home VP of Engineering. “With the Dyson CleanTrace, we add this extra layer of cleaning intelligence to the Gen5detect vacuum. It gives you the ability to see where you have and haven’t cleaned, which, combined with our on-board particle sensing technology, gives proof that the floor is truly clean.”

Dyson is making its CleanTrace tech available from June 2024, which includes release of its custom phone clamp, offered directly from Dyson.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • gothicvillas

    They would flog more vacuums if it was on Quest

  • Aw man, this sucks ….
    #BahDumDumSmash
    []^ )

  • They could have at least thanked Daniel for the idea…

    • philingreat

      He was not the first with this idea

  • Arno van Wingerde

    Well, this comes 9 days too late. Kudos for the efforts to mimic a robot vacuum though. How shall we call this: “virtual artificial intelligence”?

  • NotMikeD

    The studio that made Powerwash Simulator VR is just like “it’s over..”

  • NL_VR

    You really must like doing manual vacuum if you chose to do it in those conditions showing in the clip.