James Dyson has another good idea. Most of his products really suck and I mean that in a good way. His vacuum cleaners have been extremely sucksessful (pun intended, thank you) Now he's found a way to improve the customer support process.

The gizmo alerts the user if it has broken down or needs a replacement part.

The owner then dials the number of the Dyson call centre and holds the telephone receiver to the vacuum cleaner.

The machine transmits a message telling engineers what’s wrong and orders any new part it needs.

Its computer chip even lets them know WHEN it was bought and for how LONG it has been in use.

The cleaner is already in the shops in Japan and British genius Dyson says it will be on sale in the UK soon.

Mr Dyson said the new cleaner was devised to save owners the hassle of finding their model details and serial number.

He told The Sun: “The machine does it all for you by sending a binary message. So you never have this awful business of quoting the model number."

While many product manufacturers can pull a lot of useful information(i.e. purchase date, model number, serial number, etc.) from a database of registered users not every user registers their product. A system like this can also report use information like hours in use and other episodic data that can speed the customer support process.

This is a sign that the future of intelligent appliances is upon us. It won't be long until your robotic vacuum can detect trace amounts of cigarette smoke residue or illegal drugs in the carpet of your teenagers room and call you with the evidence. "Mr. Smith, your vacuum cleaner is on line one."

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Comments

[Todd]

I can't confirm this with 100% certainity, but I think a similar technology has been available in pacemakers for some time. I think the idea here was that adjustments would be necessary after it was implanted and there needed to be a way to do that.