Winkfield St Mary's Church of England Primary School in Berkshire sent the portable robot in his place, while Rufus watched on a tablet at home. His mother Louise said: "He felt like he was there.

While it’s nice to have a robot vacuum your floors for you, a vacuum can only clean your house so much. For a really deep clean, you’ll also need to run a mop over the hard floor surfaces.

A major advancement in home automation technology has emerged with the development of an affordable floor cleaning robot designed to make automated cleaning accessible to a wider population.