Recently I reviewed my first smart vacuum. It was a mixed bag to say the least. It did a great job with the day-to-day dog fur and crumbs left behind by the kids, but it repeatedly accosted my Golden Retriever and finally gave up the ghost and stopped working altogether thanks to a lidar-related error that I am still working on with BlitzWolf support.

One thing I didn’t mention in the review was the obvious downfall of most smart vacuums. Stairs. Smart vacuums lack arms and legs, therefore they are stuck on whatever level of your house you decide it will live. But what if your vacuum could fly…

YouTuber and engineer Peter Sripol has heavily modified his smart vac to do just that. Check it out.

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This is a pretty impressive bit of work Peter has done, and all for about $200. It does have its limitation though. Due to the lack of the needed sensors to navigate on its own while in flight, the vacuum does need to be piloted by a person and due to the downdraft from the fans it will blow around any dirt it hopes to clean up.

Those issues aside, this is just a proof-of-concept and more of a fun party trick than anything else right now. With time though, I do hope to see actual vacuum manufacturers finding ways for their vacuums to overcome stairs.