DJI Is Expected to Release A Floor-Sweeping Robot Next Year

On April 1, 2020, a post appeared on the DJI community: DJI released a new generation of sweeping robot, with effects and efficiency far surpassing Dyson. Clicking in revealed a video of the DJI drone Elf 3 flying close to an unmanned road: the high-speed rotating propellers blew the fallen leaves on the ground to both sides, revealing the ground.

This April Fool’s joke may soon come true. We have learned that DJI has been developing sweeping robots for four years. If all goes well, it is expected to be released in mid-next year at a price similar to high-end sweeping robots on the market. DJI responded by saying, “We do not comment on unreleased products or related rumors.”

A DJI insider said that DJI decided to make a robotic vacuum cleaner because the technology used in this product aligns with DJI’s years of accumulation, including path planning, visual recognition obstacle avoidance, high-performance motors, and LiDAR. When developing drones, DJI has always had reserves.

DJI hopes to continue its growth by leveraging products like robotic vacuum cleaners. DJI’s founder and CEO Wang Tao predicted in an interview in 2016 that the drone market was approaching saturation and that once DJI’s revenue reached 20 billion RMB, it might hit a ceiling. In that year, DJI’s revenue grew by over 60% year-on-year to nearly 10 billion RMB.

When seeking financing in 2018, DJI estimated in its business plan that drones would only account for 50% of revenue after another five years; the imaging sector would contribute 25%, while the remaining 25% would come from new businesses.

Since 2014, besides launching a series of drones, DJI has introduced other products: some cater to other needs of drone users such as action cameras, professional gimbal systems for shooting purposes and outdoor power sources for charging these devices; others utilize drone technology such as assisted driving solutions using visual recognition technology. They also incubated a LiDAR company which is an extension of their previous car manufacturing plans; there are also directions seemingly unrelated to their core drone business such as educational programming robots and electric mountain bikes starting at a price point of around $36k – they may reflect Frank Wang’s interests.

DJI’s revenue did not stop at 20 billion yuan. According to the China Private Enterprises Top 500 list released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, DJI’s revenue in 2022 reached 30.14 billion yuan. However, the overall revenue growth is mainly due to the continuous expansion of the drone market.

In that year, the global consumer drone market share was $4.45 billion. Calculated based on DJI’s global market share of 70% to 90%, DJI’s consumer-grade drone revenue could reach between 21 to 24 billion yuan; At the same time, DJI holds nearly half of the market share in China’s agricultural drone sector, which may also generate nearly another ten billion yuan or more in revenue according to market size estimates. Overall, drone revenues account for about 70% to 80% of DJI’s total income, with other businesses not meeting half of their expected shares.

SEE ALSO: DJI Sues the US DoD, Claiming Opposition to Products Being Used for Military Purposes

The market size for robotic vacuum cleaners is rapidly approaching that of consumer drones. Market participants have expanded from just iRobot and Ecovacs to include startups such as Narwal and Roborock as well as cross-border companies like Xiaomi, Midea, and Anker Innovation. They are using autonomous driving technology to transform robotic vacuum cleaners and continuously expand their functions through competition – now they can not only automatically clean mops with hot water but also dry them and sterilize them with ultraviolet light.

Intense competition has led more households to adopt robotic vacuum cleaners, leading to a continuous expansion of its market size. Business Research predicts that by 2030, the global robotic vacuum cleaner market share will grow to $8.1 billion, which is an increase by a factor of almost two compared with what it was in2013.

We understand that DJI has been developing floor-cleaning robots since at least 2020. At that time, floor-cleaning robots had received initial validation in the market. Established floor-cleaning robot companies such as Ecovacs, specialized startups like Narwal and Roborock focusing on floor-cleaning robots, as well as cross-industry players like Xiaomi, Midea, and Anker Innovation have all seen an increase in sales of their floor-cleaning robots.

At that time, there was still a lot of room for improvement in the functions of floor-cleaning robots: for example, they were noisy when turned on; the cleaning rollers at the bottom were prone to getting tangled with hair leading to malfunctions; the visual systems had difficulty recognizing pet feces and sometimes the robot would run over them directly.

Optimizing these functions and user experience is a key breakthrough direction for DJI’s development of floor-cleaning robots. However, Frank Wang’s pursuit of taste means that it is not enough for DJI’s team to achieve just this. Over the past four years, DJI’s floor-cleaning robot team has expanded to about 300 people, approaching the scale of some startups in this industry.

In the past 4 years of secret research and development of floor-sweeping robots by DJI, the Chinese floor-sweeping robot market has already become saturated. Once a new feature of a product is validated, competitors will follow suit within a few months to iterate on their products. For example, after Narwal pioneered the release of integrated sweeping and mopping robots early on, automatic cleaning mop functions quickly became standard features in similar products. Since the beginning of this year, only four companies – Roborock, Narwal, Ecovacs Robotics, and ZhiMi – have released 16 different models of floor-sweeping robots.

The issues that existed with floor-sweeping robots in previous years have also been gradually optimized through the mutual competition among these companies. Most users are concerned about hair entanglement around roller brushes; there are multiple solutions in the industry such as changing roller brush shapes or incorporating blade cutting mechanisms. The suction power of floor-sweeping robots has also increased from 2000Pa to nearly 20000Pa.

In such an extremely competitive market, it is very difficult for any company to produce a unique and competitive product. We understand that DJI has postponed the release of its floor-sweeping robot at least twice: once last year and another time in May this year. A source from DJI mentioned that after Frank Wang reviewed the planned product for launch but decided not to sell it directly; instead they would sell the second generation model which required essentially starting over with a new product.

Similar situations have occurred with other new projects attempted by DJI as well. For instance, Amflow (Anliu), an electric-assist mountain bike incubated by DJI with a starting price at 36 thousand yuan was also a project closely monitored by Frank Wang; its product design underwent numerous major revisions before settling on its final version.

A source close to DJI stated that many new projects at DJI have not yet been launched successfully; ‘there’s also this risk for floor-sweeping robots,’ even though DJI has set plans to introduce them next year.

DJI responded stating that there were discrepancies between information provided regarding team size and roles played by founders in relation to their aforementioned robotic sweeping project.

SEE ALSO: DJI to Release New Product on October 15th, Likely Air 3S Drone