
I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019) - mzehrer
https://dev.to/deciduously/i-am-mesmerized-by-our-new-robotic-vacuum-10pc
======
aasasd
I bought a robotic vacuum more out of curiosity and to see if I should buy one
as a gift for my parents. Just one of the cheapest models that still had good
reviews.

It turned out that all deficiencies of such a vacuum are offset by its basic
function: it keeps the apartment clean each day, every day. Dirty corners?
Weak suction? Small container? Somewhat noisy? Not too smart? Gets stuck
sometimes? I need to clean hairs out of the rotating brush? I still have to
mop the place? Pffft, none of this matters when the carpet and the kitchen are
dust-free _every day_ without me doing the vacuuming. If it misses a spot
today, it will get it tomorrow. After a few runs the floor is indeed cleaner
than it ever was, and stays that way. No rogue crumbs stuck to my feet before
the cleanup day. Still managed to find something unpleasant on the floor? Just
give the robot a bit of work right here. It's like SSDs after HDDs: you have
to worry about having backups, but it'll be amazing in the meantime.

Rather prophetically, the cheap production has shown itself when something got
cooked in the electronic insides and the vac entered the eternity of ‘error
03’.

~~~
raducu
I don't like the cleaning I have to do before I let the robot loose -- pick up
toys; I could vacuum much faster than the robot does and without heavy lifting
of items in my crowded flat.

But I usually don't vacuum, so overall I'm satisfied with my roborock.

~~~
bonniemuffin
I love this feature! After a lifetime of throwing my socks on the floor,
Roomba finally trained me to put them in the laundry hamper. I've learned to
keep my floors tidy all the time, and my life is much better for it.

~~~
wpietri
I like this feature, too! When I first got mine I had it set up to run only on
certain days, as my small place doesn't need a lot of vacuuming. Then I
discovered that the closer I got to the robot run, the tidier I was. So I
wrote some code to make it run on random days, and that finally got me to stop
trying to cheat.

------
chewxy
A good way to explore the algorithms of the robot is to set it out to run in
the night. At the entrance of the room, set a high obstruction. Set up a
tripod. Take long exposure photos every minute or so. Then turn on the
lights/wait till day time. Take another photo. Overlay the photos in an editor
program. Spot the missing areas.

EDIT: here are some examples by other people:
[https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-
robots/lon...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/long-
exposure-pictures-of-robots-cleaning)

And here are some resources if you have a Xiaomi robot vacuum cleaner (also
sold as RoboRock)
[https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud](https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud)

~~~
jwandborg
I'm assuming you forgot to mention the light on the robot in the dark.

In order to get the progression of the run, you could have an RGB LED sweeping
through a color scale during the run.

------
kaskavalci
I do not trust Eufy brand anymore. We had a Eufy RoboVac and within its
warranty period, battery went bust. When attached to its station, it gave some
sound errors which is apparently tied to its battery. I contacted support
several times, reminded their obligation for warranty period but they did
nothing. They asked me to find a "certified technician" to get a report such
that this malfunction was present when I made the purchase. I asked what do
they want as "certified technician" and where can I get one. They stopped
replying. This took a week.

Fortunately I bought the item from Amazon. I issued a dispute and within
minutes they created a return label and issued a refund.

I now have a Roomba. I'm pretty happy so far.

~~~
hyperbovine
iRobot is a great company. They'll sell you parts to repair your robot. The
take refurbished units and sell them for educational purposes
[[https://www.irobot.com/about-
irobot/stem/create-2](https://www.irobot.com/about-irobot/stem/create-2)],
with a fully open and documented platform
[[https://www.irobot.lv/uploaded_files/File/iRobot_Roomba_500_...](https://www.irobot.lv/uploaded_files/File/iRobot_Roomba_500_Open_Interface_Spec.pdf)].
It's so obviously a company that started as somebody's grad school project,
and remains so to this day, and I mean that in the best possible way.

As usual, a bunch of ripoff Chinese competitors will sell you a cheaper piece
of shit that you'll find yourself throwing away in three years. Resist the
temptation.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah. I got a squeaky wheel on my Roomba 960, sent an email to customer
services, they just sent me a whole new wheel module with instructions on how
to replace it. Really really great service. And it looks like pretty much all
parts of the robot can be bought and replaced separately.

------
dharma1
I've had the Xiaomi one for a couple of years, the one with lidar. It's great.
Used to love watching the app as the little guy gets to work and the map
starts building realtime.

It runs Ubuntu, you can root it. And even get spotify running on it.

[https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud](https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud)

[https://medium.com/@anxodio/how-to-get-spotify-working-on-
yo...](https://medium.com/@anxodio/how-to-get-spotify-working-on-your-xiaomi-
vacuum-da28c52bbb4e)

~~~
bonestamp2
> you can root it. And even get spotify running on it

Some might ask why you'd want Spotify on your vacuum? I would have it play
Dolly Parton's "(Working) 9 to 5" on loop whenever it's running. I feel like
that would be hilarious forever. Other suggestions welcome.

~~~
munificent
Kraftwerk – We Are the Robots

~~~
soperj
Dan Mangan - Robots ~ "Robots need love too..."

------
eat_veggies
The algorithm of going straight until you hit a wall, and then turning a
(constant) angle has some really cool properties -- some angles/starting
positions will eventually let you cover the entire floor, while others will
produce beautiful repeating patterns [1].

One key insight for visualizing "hitting a wall and then turning" is that you
can pretend that the walls in your room are covered with mirrors that you can
walk through. Hitting the wall and bouncing at an angle is equivalent to
approaching the mirror at your angle, and then continuing _straight through it
into the mirrored side_. You can verify this in your bathroom mirror by
bouncing your finger off it, vs. pretending it goes straight through: in both
cases, which side of the bathroom does it bounce toward?

After a finite distance of continuing straight through mirror-walls, do you
end up in your original location? I.e. can you see the back of your head in
the room of mirrors? If so, then you're on a periodic path, and you're not
going to cover the entire floor.

[1]
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11310.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11310.pdf)

~~~
chris_st
Interesting! I wonder if it matters for this case... the walls of the room
aren't going to be exactly parallel (or may be a trapezoid, pentagon, or
worse), the robot's wheels are going to slip somewhat on each turn so the
angle turned won't always be the same, etc. Stupid real world :-)

------
ballballball
I too bought a robotic vacuum out of curiosity (high end iRobot) and found the
algorithm to be completely inadequate both in it's mapping and it's ability to
adequately cover the area that it was supposed to clean. Additionally it left
random patterns in the carpet that could only be described as a drunk toddler
vacuuming... in other words, it didn't look clean. It took more than 3 days to
map the three rooms that it was supposed to clean, getting stuck away from
it's base unable to return because it's charge ran out. It would also get
stuck under my bed. I'm not certain how it's possible that it could have done
a worse job. I waited for years to enter the robot vacuum market and can state
unequivocally that waiting 9 generations wasn't enough of a wait.

~~~
gbrown
The Neato vacuums do a much better job in this respect IMHO. They figure out
the space with lidar and use a rectangular pattern.

~~~
lscotte
Absolutely. I've had both and the Neato is much better than the Roomba. The
way I look at it - it's as if the Roomba was designed by students that just
took a class on chaos theory and watched Jurassic Park, where the Neato was
designed by actual engineers. The Roomba is fun to watch bounce around
randomly. The Neato just vacuums the carpet in a logical algorithm, the same
way a human would, more or less.

------
systemtest
I've owned a mid-segment Roomba in 2019 for about 48 hours. The downsides
included aggressively bumping into my thin-legged chairs, moving them for a
couple of centimeters before coming to a stop. Not being able to vacuum black
carpet. Not being able to vacuum dark rooms, so I either have to leave all the
lights on when I leave or leave the curtains open (thus letting in cold). It
broke the delicate moulding at the base of the radiators by ramming into it.
It would distribute the coconut fibers of the doormat all over the house. It
would go under the bed but would not be able to get out. And I had to enable
2.4Ghz WiFi after all these years. Which was troublesome because my iPhone was
connected to the 5Ghz network and it tries to copy your iPhone network to the
Roomba.

Returned it. Doing a 15 minute vacuum every Saturday morning is easier for me
than to deal with all this, and it keeps the house tidy during the week.

------
klingonopera
> _" Dammit, Amazon, it's so hard to quit you._"

What? I'm not even in the US, but DDG'ing the "Eufy RoboVac 30" brings me
straight to the manufacturer's website, where it's even $40 cheaper. Why give
"Lord Bezos" a piece of the cake, when he doesn't even need to have one?

Maybe it wasn't so at the time of writing, but I have a weird feeling it's _en
vogue_ to claim to be against Amazon, but to then find some half-assed reason
as to why they're still the "only sensible" choice, and so it's all good. WTF?
Are these Amazon-financed articles?

~~~
Eric_WVGG
When I buy something off another site…

\- Will I have to register an account? Will I have to take time unsubscribing
from the email lists they sign me up for?

\- Will the checkout form work? Will it be secure? Will it be a single page,
or will there be separate pages of shipping info, billing info, payment
method, confirmation of sale, and receipt?

\- Will any of those pages be broken, forcing me to start over?

\- When will it show up? I'm not even so impatient that I need the "two day
thing" (I usually pick a later date for a $1 Amazon digital credit anyway),
but, when? There are nearly never estimates, and about half the remaining
MIGHT send a tracking number later.

Other things crop up, but basically there's countless little things that can
go wrong and you if you pick Amazon they _all_ go away.

~~~
miked85
You do have the real possibility of receiving a counterfeit item from Amazon
though, which you do not have directly from the manufacturer.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Certainly a problem with easy-to-counterfeit items, but I would think knocking
off a robot vacuum would be pretty difficult?

~~~
sqlacid
more likely to get a used returned item being sold as new; I bought an
expensive water filter cartridge from AMZ and got shipped one that was
obviously used. Somebody probably bought a new one, then returned their
current used one. AMZ refunded money without question tho. You could get a new
vac with a spent expensive battery pretty easily.

------
jspash
I'm still in the cynic camp for a few reasons. 1\. My flat is small. I can do
a decent vac in about 15 minutes. 30 minutes if I do under the bed. 2\. When I
do the "big vac", I have to move 6 dining room chairs. Then shift the table a
few inches. Zoom. Shift if back. Same goes for some other legged furniture.
3\. I also do the windowsills. No bot can do this. 4\. Don't you end up with
little arched dust patterns in every corner of every room? How does a round
vacuum do this? Seriously! This is the deal-breaker for me unless they have
some little robot-wars-style dust-brush that shoots out to get into the 90
degree angles.

All that said, I really really want one!

~~~
Tade0
They have a brush.

I've found that while it doesn't do a lot of what a human would, it can do it
_daily_. In my case the time savings made it pay for itself in half a year.

~~~
distances
> I've found that while it doesn't do a lot of what a human would, it can do
> it daily. In my case the time savings made it pay for itself in half a year.

My home has pretty high thresholds/doorsteps (what are they even called?), and
the robot always gets stuck. Thus, we clean together once a week: it does the
vacuuming, and I clean the bathroom, kitchen etc and help it go where it
wants.

This kinda works, but I wonder if there are models specifically with higher
clearing for getting over bigger obstacles?

~~~
zepolen
Just make a small ramp for it.

------
newforms
My brother inlaw had a Roomba after testing several of these. He went out one
day and came back several hours later to find his dog had defecated on the
floor and the robo-vac had smeared the entire downstairs with poo. The vac was
never the same after that

~~~
munificent
In the vacuum's defense, I wouldn't be either.

------
klausjensen
Great read!

15 years ago, I had one of the first robot lawnmovers (Husqvarna) and did
exactly the same thing: Watched it for hours, observing how it worked.

Back then, it seems it was programmed with instructions:

\- Go! If you hit an edge, rotate in a random direction and ... Go! \- If
crossing the base-wire (a buried wire leading to the base station) while
battery level < 40%, follow it and charge.

------
alfiedotwtf
Yep.

Another one is watching 3D printer’s. There’s something soothing with just
starting at the print head while the plastic oozes out and creates something
tangible. It’s Star Trek’s replicator v0.00001. After a while, you realise
you’ve been staring at it for 45 minutes.

------
graton
I like this video from Philip Bloom who has two vacuum cleaners running at
night:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdR0JT652T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdR0JT652T4)

I won't spoil what happens with them :) But the interesting thing happens at
about 1:10 into the video.

~~~
woliveirajr
After I read this one (didn't find the original again but this one explains -
[https://mashable.com/2016/08/12/roomba-spreads-dog-
poop/](https://mashable.com/2016/08/12/roomba-spreads-dog-poop/) ) I decided
to not have one in my house.

------
tantalor
> Thanks to Lord Bezos ... Dammit, Amazon, it's so hard to quit you

I'm confused how Amazon is relevant here. This product is available from many
online retailers under $200.

If you want to quit Amazon... then maybe try even a little?

------
goodoldneon
Be wary about running your Roomba unattended if you have a dog. Our pup
dropped a load in our bedroom and the Roomba smeared it 5 feet across the
carpet. Some bits were stuck to the front bumper, so the Roomba left little
poo polka dots on our baseboards.

~~~
erikig
Haha! Some pet owners have been recommending getting one as a way to get rid
of pet hair if/when I got a puppy. This is one of the best examples of the
unintended consequences. I guess house-training is a must.

------
sigwinch28
This article is good, but it misses out a few more essential features about
the device which make it a little bit more intelligent than they've discovered
so far:

\- It has infrared proximity sensors spread around the bumper which allow it
to slow down _before_ hitting a wall or other large flat surface, avoid it
entirely (for example to turn around and shoot off in another direction), or
do quite precise edge cleaning without relying on the bumper. This works best
on walls or skirting boards.

\- The base station has an infrared beacon which the robot uses to find id.
Furthermore, the robot can judge whether it is on or off-axis relative to the
base station (i.e. whether it is lined up straight or not). The robot doesn't
just dive in from any angle: it tries to line up first.

\- It has some level of stall detection for its motors: if the brushes or
wheels get stuck on something, it will stop. The internet-connected versions
of these vacuums will send out a notification when this happens.

~~~
JoBrad
It’s sort of cool to watch it through an infrared camera. The front proximity
sensor is like a set of headlights.

------
JoeAltmaier
By now there are many videos of robot vacuums covering areas. Its very
informative. Not necessary to wait and see what a brand will do; just find a
video and watch it in fast-time.

I have a Shark IQ which some videos rate as the best in the middle class. We
have 1200sqft to cover and it can do about half that on a charge,
methodically.

But it often gets stuck behind the AV center, or behind the piano, or wedged
under my wife's chair or a certain cabinet baseboard in the bathroom. At least
once a week. And with nobody home, the voice alert calling for help is
pointless (scheduled to run when nobody is home).

So it just runs its batteries down waiting. If it could do one more thing
better, I would say go into low-power when stuck?

Anyway we like it, gave it a name ("Puck") and each day check if Puck 'made it
home'. If not its a pleasant job walking around to find where Puck got stuck.
Not a bad purchase at all, considering the always-clean floors(!) and the
entertainment value to boot.

------
chasd00
my wife showed up with one she found on clearance and then with some
additional discounts. I was skeptical but every time it runs the little
dustbin is completely full. I figure if it didn't run, all that dirt, dust,
pet hair would still be on the floor. I wonder if all the roombas gossip about
how dirty our floors are to other roombas over wifi..

------
pabs3
In case folks are interested in digging deeper, there is libre robot vacuum
firmware:

[https://librervac.org/](https://librervac.org/)

------
kube-system
Too many people make the mistake of assuming that a robot _should_ solve the
problem the same way that humans do.

You have to into the account the respective strengths and weaknesses of humans
and robots.

I can easily best a robot at sensing the layout of my living room, but a robot
can easily best me at perseverance.

------
voiper1
I got a robo-vac, but ultimately stopped using it because of chairs and
children. I had to clean up in order to run it at all, and it would get stuck
under the chairs and not be able to get out. (I guess exactly the wrong
sizing.)

I mainly got it because my wife and I have a dust-mite allergy and cleaning
the floor with water or HEPA vacuum can help. We've replaced it with a much
more expensive (and totally manual) hizero[1] wet vacuum, and it's great.
Also, we have tile floors so wet always cleans better than a vacuum (and wet
pads need to be cleaned/replaced way too often on a robo-vacuum).

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og8lhk3oZe8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og8lhk3oZe8)

~~~
ericpauley
I had a similar problem with the robot getting stuck under the furniture.
Shimming up the legs by just a few mm did the trick.

------
amelius
I suspect there is some bias going on here. I bet if you just watched a
simulation of the robot (which could probably even run in the browser), you
wouldn't be all that impressed. The fact that it has motors and that it moves
makes it cool.

------
rini17
Nobody seems to mention: How do you empty the dust compartment without
stirring up the dust?

My vacuum (Robzone) collects it in plastic box that is to be opened and
cleaned out into trashbin with attached brush, the dust inevitably gets
airborne.

~~~
6510
do it outside or spray water into it

~~~
rini17
Doing it outside already.

There is also paper hepa filter on it that can't get wet. Even so, not sure if
mucking with dirty water is worth it.

~~~
6510
There is also the silly solution: Empty it while holding the nozzle of a
vacuum cleaner nearby.

------
thallukrish
I can relate to the author's curiosity of how such a random movement ends up
doing a near perfect clean in the given time. I have tried to understand how
my basic Roomba works as well. One simple algorithm could be that it is simply
storing the path it travels randomly like a criss-cross, zig-zag path and ends
up filling a imaginary polygon with those zig-zag movement. That's probably
the reason it does not get stuck doing the same part of a room again and
again.

------
6510
I think it could be perfect if you do something like Bose and measure the
building before installing the bots.

As a professional cleaner I have the following suggestion:

Make A cleaning schedule with different frequencies for different tasks. For
humans you have to limit complexity, the robot cant get enough of it.

The trick is to do a great job with the least runtime and perfect timing.

1 (Highest frequency): The visible areas when walking from the front door to
the seat where your guests will sit. The entire house can be either 1) a
complete mess, it will still look clean. Or 2) the entire house can be supper
clean it still wont look clean.

Some cameras would be nifty here.

1.1: edges for 1

2: Same as 1 for all frequently used paths in the house except those covered
by 1. Could split this up into levels of frequency.

2.1: edges for 2

3rd: All open surfaces not covered by 1 and 2.

3.1: all edges not covered by 1.1 and 2.1

The edges are done roughly every 4th round.

The 1st it can do multiple times per day depending on traffic. (1 times is a
good minimum) It could by a dynamic number based on motion sensors. Timing is
everything, if the room is empty it can do its thing for 2-3 minutes (quit if
someone walks in) Nr 2 is done half to 1/3 as frequent as 1. Nr 3 is done half
to 1/3 as frequent as 2.

I've used the above system for years and it continues to amaze me how quick
one can execute the routine and how clean everything looks. Nr 1 sometimes
takes no more than a gaze around the room.

Without such system one just does "everything" every time which is a lot more
work than it seems. (enough work to cut the same corners every time) The
result also looks really inferior.

------
samsolomon
Robot vacuums have been such a game changer for me. It's funny because
functionally they are worse than a cordless sick or full-size vacuum in almost
every way. However being able to turn it on before I head for work everyday
makes a giant difference.

One thing I am skeptical of is robot vacuums that connect to the internet.
Some of the higher end Roombas do that and I'm skeptical that it makes them
more efficient. Wrote some more about it here:

[https://productdork.com/t/whats-the-best-robot-vacuum-
cleane...](https://productdork.com/t/whats-the-best-robot-vacuum-cleaner/24/3)

The good news is that the Eufy's seem to work fine without any internet
connectivity. I've got the Eufy RoboVac 11S and would highly recommend it.
Unlike my previous Roomba, it doesn't speed up before bumping into things—it
mostly avoids it. Also, it is significantly quieter.

------
hadlock
We got one of these about three years ago. It saved our relationship.

The big complaint I always hear is "yeah but the pattern is random, it doesn't
clean the whole floor evenly"

That is technically true, but the roomba cleans the floor for an hour,
randomly, every day. This is a tremendous amount of cleaning. It pulls
probably a pound of dirt off the floor every week, maybe more. Being able to
have the floor cleaned - even randomly - for an hour, every day, makes a
tremendous difference.

It might not get the spilled cat food for 2-3 days, but on day 4 it will get
it. If you're only vacuuming once a week that is probably faster than a human
would do it. It also vacuums all the weird spots, like under the sink in the
bathroom, that you forget to check every week.

It also trains you to not leave stray socks, cell phone charging cables etc on
the floor. Which is nice if you're not super super tidy.

------
roland35
Working on robotic lawn mowers - I still had the same feeling watching them do
their thing. You can get pretty far with random turns with some edge
following.

One thing that can help a lot is gps (or other absolute position). This can
definitely help make sure your robot can make roughly the correct turn to get
in those nooks.

~~~
GrinningFool
I'm just starting to look into robotic lawn mower as a project. Do you have
any recommended reading?

------
rubidium
My in-laws just got one for their lake house, and it’s been equally fun to
watch.

It’s the perfect thing for there because the last thing you want to do after a
relaxing weekend at the lake is vacuum. Just hit go before leaving and you’re
set.

Now I’m curious about the lawn ones. Anyone have any experience to share?

------
PeterStuer
Getting a robot to fully path cover a surface by a random walk type algorithm
is surprizingly difficult. One of the nuances most simulators do not fully
grasp is that there are path rectifiers that emerge from physical
interactions. Examples are collisions with walls where even though the robot
comes in at a range of different angles, due to momentum and friction variance
is lost and it leaves in a more narrow set of angles. Another example is
grooved surfaces such as you find on wooden or tiled floors where slight
angles to the groove are passively adjusted to the groove.

I worked extensively on small robotic vehicles in the 80's and 90's. My
undergrad thesis was on a robotic simulator.

------
chiph
I'm on my second Roomba, and they've been great. What impressed me was how
strong the suction was. My initial thoughts were "How can something that small
ever pick up as much dirt as my regular vacuum?" But it actually does better
than the upright - it picks up far more dirt/cat-hair, even when the upright
is on a fresh filter. Which is important with a long-haired cat - I get cat-
hair tumbleweeds on the stairs. I sweep them manually down to the next floor,
and hit the start button and leave for work. I return to a freshly vacuumed
floor.

Ob. cat tax: [https://imgur.com/a/JHBue4Y](https://imgur.com/a/JHBue4Y)

------
bane
We bought my aging mother-in-law an iRobot mopping robot a couple years ago.
It still works great and has freed up 30min to an hour of time per day she
spent cleaning up the floor (they're Korean and spend a great deal of time
doing activities on the floor so floor cleanliness is very important).

More importantly, her legs and back aren't doing so well these days and it's
eliminated a painful and difficult daily task for her. She loves it almost as
much as a pet. Just set it up and forget it for the next hour and the floor is
mopped! The biggest problem it has is getting hung-up on her grandkids toys.

------
trqx
Looks like I cannot comment on dev.to but @deciduously should definitely give
netlogo a try:
[https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/](https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/)

See existing models here:
[https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/index.cgi](https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/index.cgi)

You can share your results as HTML if that's your thing.

------
Damogran6
I Bought 2.5-ish Roombas, maybe paid MSRP for one, and bought (and repaired) a
couple of refurb units off Woot a decade or so ago.

It was an interesting exercise, and if our pet-load was a little lighter (I'd
hate to see it get caught in Macaw Poop) I'd consider doing it again.

But.

They do wear and there was maintenance, and the batteries did lose capacity,
and I eventually wandered away from them because there was a lot of labor in a
labor saving device.

Maybe a mop for the trailer?

~~~
whoisthemachine
On the battery front - many of them are carrying lithium-ion batteries these
days instead of the old nickel-metal hydride batteries that the older Roombas
used, so their battery life is much better, until it's not.

------
Mandatum
The brushless motor on my original Xiaomi Robovac died and I was able to order
a new one and install it myself from AliExpress for under $50. Big fan of
Xiaomi products, even with their poor brand reputation. RoboRock is an off-
shoot that's done really well, best-in-breed for most consumers.

------
mrvenkman
In the UK you can currently buy this model for £179.99:
[https://www.eufylife.com/uk/products/variant/robovac-30c/T21...](https://www.eufylife.com/uk/products/variant/robovac-30c/T2118211)

------
noodlesUK
I’d love a robotic vacuum. However, my house is not very flat. It has two main
floors, but several rooms are offset from the main floors by about a foot or
two (who knows why). Is it possible to put a small ramp on the stairs and tell
the vacuums how to navigate it?

------
aabajian
I have Eufy and a tiny 450 sq. ft. condo. I'm still amazed at how much dirt
the vacuum picks up. 15 min of manual vacuuming is nothing compared to 2
continuous hours. Now that I have a dog, for $200, it's a no-brainer. When I
come home it's a noticeable difference.

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tasubotadas
I have exactly the same model and I had exactly the same experience. I was
mesmerized by the device to see how it would reach my entire apartment
following really simple algos.

Also, I also had very little expectations in the beginning (just a bit less
dust) but it did really amazing job.

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cx0der
I have a older model of Neato, it uses a lidar to map out the floor. First it
traces the boundraries of the room or 10ftx10ft if it can't find a wall within
that distance and then follows a rectangular path adjusting for any obstacles
it finds in its path.

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syntaxing
I totally agree with this! My spouse was making fun of me for staring at our
Neato for almost its whole cleaning session. Watching the 2D LiDAR work while
the robot does the path planning is absolutely fascinating to me for a machine
that is less than $400.

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d_runs_far
Hardwood floors + large hairy dog + robo vacuum = less dog hair floating
about.

I seriously don't know how we kept our sanity before having one of these. We
really notice it if we don't run it some days.

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Simulacra
It is bewildering why I will stop what I’m doing to watch my robot vacuum move
around the floor. There is no rhyme or reason that I can figure out.

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mentos
How do robotic vacuums handle the frills on carpets? I've got a carpet in my
room that I think could defeat his enthusiasm haha

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sytelus
Future generations will look to us in amusement that in 2020 only thing robots
could do people’s home was vacuuming.

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mirimir
Huh, so am I the only one seeing analogies to the behavior of some of my
subsystems?

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mrlala
Love love love the Neato vacuum. With small kids, it has changed my life.

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KaoruAoiShiho
googled it apparently eufy is a brand of anker. suddenly not surprised by the
price/quality.

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z3t4
Random is hard to beat.

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sam0x17
learn about SLAM that's the algorithm they all use

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mattlondon
Same here - we got a Neato one and I'd end up just standing there watching it.
Totally fascinating - more than once I even got it out to show to people
visiting! n:)

The Neato ones are a bit more methodical - they have a simple time-of-flight
rotating laser sensor that does some SLAM-style stuff to map out the room
which means it can do long continuous back-and-forth paths across the room
(random image I found that explains it nicely:
[https://www.generationrobots.com/img/cms/Navigation-
Algorith...](https://www.generationrobots.com/img/cms/Navigation-Algorithm-
Neato-XV-15.jpg)) It has a charging base thing - it has a special pattern of
stripes (kinda like a barcode I guess) behind a human-opaque panel that it
uses to locate the charger.

While it was nice to just set the thing off and leave it to do its thing, it
is not without problems though:

\- it would very happily suck-up and chew cables or errant socks etc, and/or
push low stuff around in front of it (e.g shoes). You had to spend time
picking up phone charging cables and shoes etc before starting.

\- it was not very accurate when it came to working around slanted chair/table
legs (since its laser beam would only pick a point approx 5cm off of the
ground, it would often hit the lower part of the leg that was in its path but
that it could not see)

\- it would often get stuck "under" things since there was about 1.5cm of
extra height above the laser, and it feels like a lot of IKEA furniture is all
just high enough for it to drive under and get wedged because it could not see
it.

\- it would sometimes get stuck in situations where there was a very tight
space between two things (e.g. dining chair and a wall)but where in theory it
was wide enough for it to drive down - it would end up trying to reverse out,
but actually managing to reverse into the wall and jack its self up so the
wheels lost traction.

\- it does not know if it has "missed" something or done a good job, so often
stubborn bits of fluff don't get picked up.

We've now had to retire ours because we got new carpets and it seems to get
stuck a lot on the new carpet that is a bit thicker, often doing wheel spins
for 30 seconds at a time. This seems to really confuse the SLAM algo since
after it regains traction it ends up just driving straight into walls and
stuff, despite having a laser sensor to tell it there was a wall there ... I
guess it used some sort of encoding from its wheels as input too (perhaps as a
effort to ignore "unexpected" laser returns - e.g. perhaps intended to ignore
people pets when it has already mapped a room?)

We've replaced it with a dyson cordless stick vacuum thing with a wall-
charger-dock thing. It doesn't take that much longer to do it by hand when you
factor in the prep-time (picking up cables, moving dining chairs away from the
table, moving things far away out from the wall etc etc), rescuing stuck robot
time, or manual pick-ups of things it missed required afterwards, and then
moving all of your chairs etc back into position. It is also nice to not have
to bend down so much to move the robot one around, or empty its dustbin.

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weeboid
Author completely lost me at "I'm gonna keep her" … the ability to type that
sentence out into the public domain. #smh

~~~
learnstats2
Agree - I stopped reading here.

Claiming ownership over women is not a funny joke, and completely lost my
respect.

~~~
Chris2048
"keep"

1\. have or retain possession of.

2\. continue or cause to continue in a specified condition, position, course,
etc.

Could mean keep her as a girlfriend, If I say "I'm keeping my doctor" I'm not
claiming to personally take ownership of my GP.

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KarlKemp
I’m immediately put off by the second ‘graphs being fully devoted to publicly
putting his girlfriend in her place?

We learn it’s „impulsive“ for her to make spending decisions (for him it would
have been „decisive“, probably, given the good opportunity and how quick he is
to think on his feet). He even moans about being „incapable of being upset“,
as if it would be entirely normal, nay _expected_ , to be upset about one‘s
spouse making a sub-$200 spending decision.

Then he decides to „keep her“, as if it’s entirely his choice.

Yes, sure, somewhat outdated role models by themselves are somewhat benign,
and probably too widespread to really get upset about. But this just stood out
for me, somehow. Try reading it with reversed roles if you did not notice.

~~~
somehnguy
You're way too sensitive and act as if we should conduct ourselves like formal
robots. Sounds like a really boring world, loosen up a bit.

~~~
IAmEveryone
"Humor" and "publicly belittling your spouse" are completely orthogonal
issues. As people tend to notice after middle school, life can be enjoyed
without any out-group being made the subject of tired stereotypes.

