Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners were introduced by iRobot in 2002 and became widely known for moving around homes on their own, changing direction after bumping into furniture and walls. That familiar behaviour made the devices a natural subject for home videos, pet clips and robot jokes online, where the small machine often appears to have a personality of its own. The sound of its motor and movement is now used as shorthand for automated cleaning, lazy housework solutions and a machine quietly taking over a mundane task while people watch.