No-go zones are your robot's invisible fence

Virtual walls were a clever workaround when robot vacuums first started getting smart enough to map a room but not smart enough to respect boundaries. You’d place these chunky plastic towers on the floor, they’d shoot an infrared beam you couldn’t see, and the robot would treat it like a force field. It worked, but it meant buying extra physical gadgets, finding floor space for them, and tripping over them in the dark.

No-go zones are what replaced that whole category of products with software. You open the app, draw a box or a line on your floor plan, and the robot simply never goes there. No hardware. No beam. Nothing to trip over. The same principle — keep the robot out of the plant corner or away from the dog bowls — but delivered through a screen instead of a plastic tower on your floor.

The name still sounds a bit dramatic for something that just keeps your vacuum out of the charging cable nest, but it’s a solid upgrade over the physical approach.