This is really cool and I’d actually love to have it.
The main issue with it — aside from the limited market; how many houses are big enough to justify the cost, and how many of those are new construction or to-the-studs remodeled in any given year? — will be reliability over time. Central vac systems eventually fail and generally homeowners find it simpler to buy a normal vacuum than to fix the system.
Now this seems like a job for semi-autonomous robots.
My family had a house with a central vacuum system in the late 70s. The vacuum was located in the garage, and it detected the loss of suction and turned on when you opened the wall flap to insert the hose. But, yeah, I've always wondered what you do when the seals fail or the vacuum stops working. Our house also had intercoms.
You have the vacuum serviced, of course! Like any other appliance. My parents built their dream home in 1999 and included a central vac, it needed some TLC in the mid 2010's so they called the company up to service it since it had a lifetime warranty.
Naturally 'lifetime' meant for the homeowner who purchased the unit, so the company often didn't have to honor the warranty as failures were uncommon until the 3rd, 4th or 5th owner. The tech was bemused when he came out to work on it since it was his first warranty call.
My parents still live in the house I grew up in which has a central vacuum cleaner.
Theirs is a “Beam” system.
Each outlet has a copper pair of wires running to it, connected to two contact pins on the inside of the outlet, and the vacuum hose has a metal ring on it so that as it’s inserted, it completes an electrical circuit between the two contact pins, signalling the vacuum cleaner turn on, once the circuit is broken, it would turn off.
Perhaps the system you had actually worked like this.
Brings back great memories of a house I lived in as a little kid. It had a central vacuum system, which inspired my father's comedic "horror" stories about Ze Vacuum Hoze.
The main issue with it — aside from the limited market; how many houses are big enough to justify the cost, and how many of those are new construction or to-the-studs remodeled in any given year? — will be reliability over time. Central vac systems eventually fail and generally homeowners find it simpler to buy a normal vacuum than to fix the system.
Now this seems like a job for semi-autonomous robots.