Hands-on with Matic Cues, the new gesture and voice control features of the Matic robot vacuum.

Hands-on with Matic Cues, the new gesture and voice control features of the Matic robot vacuum.

Matic, my current favorite robot vacuum, just got a big upgrade. The company has launched Matic Cues, which brings voice and gesture control to the robot. Now, you can talk directly to your vacuum to tell it what you want it to do, or just point at a mess to have it spot-clean.

The feature launches today, August 13 at 2 pm ET, and will show as an option in the Matic app under Settings > Matic Cues. The update arrives just ahead of a planned price hike on September 9, which will see the WALL-E-style robot’s price go from $1,245 to $1,495.

I’ve been playing with Matic Cues for a day or so, and so far it’s working well. Gesture control is the standout feature here, as it’s something no other robot vacuum offers — the company’s founders are both computer vision engineers who worked at Google Nest cameras, and have been developing the feature since 2017.

It works by waking up the robot with the wake word “Hey, Matic,” then waiting for it to “see” me (by turning toward my voice). I then point to the mess, say “clean here,” and off it goes. I did notice that if I wanted it to target a smaller area, I needed to crouch down to point at it. If I gestured from standing height, it cleaned a wider area, taking longer. It can also follow me, so saying “Hey Matic, follow me,” walking to and pointing at the mess, started a clean-up.

Because it uses the robot’s existing vision hardware — which includes five cameras — gesture control works entirely on-device and is coming to all existing Matic robots.

While most robot vacuums let you spot-clean by drawing a zone in the app, I’ve found that method to be imprecise and not useful for quick cleanups. Some can also respond to a “clean here” voice command, but that’s based on the general area where you’re standing; Matic’s gesture-based implementation feels more focused.

“Hey Matic” is processed on device but any command after is sent to the cloud, annonymously

The new built-in voice assistant also worked smoothly in initial testing. Voice control isn’t new on robot vacuums — nearly all work with Alexa and Google and some with Apple’s Siri, and many now have their own onboard voice assistants — including Roborock, Ecovacs, and Narwal. I’ve had mixed success with these long-term. Most require remembering exact commands; while “vacuum the kitchen” is easy to remember, other phrases are less intuitive and less flexible than Matic’s offering.

Matic uses the Gemini API to understand natural language, including commands like “vacuum the inside of the carpet” (thus avoiding the tassels), “clean just the hard floors,” and “clean the toekicks in the kitchen” — something I always want done right after cooking dinner.

The robot could hear me from a room away and responded promptly — although it took a beat to go off and execute the command. It also doesn’t talk back; instead, its small display indicates it heard you and tells you what it’s doing.

I was impressed how many commands it understood, including chained commands, like “clean the kitchen, vacuum the living room, and then mop the bathroom.” It also slunk back to its dock when I said, “Hey Matic, go away.” Handy if it’s underfoot when I’m cooking.

One of Matic’s biggest selling points is that it doesn’t require the cloud and can be used without an internet connection. However, voice control does need both of those. While the company says the “Hey Matic” wake word is processed on-device, meaning no ambient chatter is sent to the cloud, any command after is sent to the Gemini API. A short chime tells you when anything is leaving the device.

Matic Cues is opt in, and you can turn it and the device’s microphones off in settings

Mehul Nariyawala, cofounder and president of Matic, says the commands it sends are anonymized, adding that Matic chose cloud processing to support more than 75 languages and a wider variety of commands. The company plans to take the top 20 or 30 most-used commands and bring those locally in the future. Matic Cues is opt in, and you can turn it and the microphones off in settings.

The trade-off between more convenience and more privacy is a constant tussle in the smart home. Roborock’s “Hey Rocky” voice assistant is entirely on device, but I rarely use it because it’s just not intuitive. So far I’ve found myself using “Hey Matic” much more frequently, as it’s just easier to talk to. The gesture control also solves a pain point I’ve long struggled with — getting a robot to clean the exact spot I want. For Matic users, this is a worthwhile update, and for those considering pulling the trigger, it’s a new convenience that makes a very good robot vacuum even better.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge