cr0sh:
As a hobbyist, for $400.00 USD, I could easily purchase a Neato Robotics vacuum, tear it down, gain the sensor (which this sensor seems to be an almost direct copy of), plus a host of other useful parts. It seems like the more sensible option.
That would make for a very cool robot. Well the Neato already is a very cool robot of course (we love ours!)
I seem to remember reading that the creators of Neato had originally planned to make their low cost lidar technology more widely available to third parties, but I haven't seen or heard much more about that.