

The Coming (Cleaning) Robot War - cubix
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4341854.html

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thibaut_barrere
I do own a Roomba 560 with 2 virtual walls (as sold in France). It's easily
the best home-related purchase we did last year.

For the anecdote, we nicknamed it "wall-e". Our 2yo is totally used to it.

I'd for sure would be willing to buy more domestic robots if I could find
valuable ones (I'm thinking about the Scooba).

Is there anyone with interesting links to share on the subject ?

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ericb
In terms of the Scooba's value, if you have good sized swaths of hardwood or
tile that you can clear off for it, it becomes a practical alternative to most
mop work. However, I wouldn't recommend it for the non-technical--I had to
clear the pump opening a couple times by forcing water through it (per tech
support). Still, I hate mopping, and it was decent enough at it.

In terms of practicality the Scooba is like the dishwasher-convenience
paradigm. You maintain it, load and unload, but it saves you work overall. I
get the sense that the return on effort is slightly lower than the Roomba.

After we had our first child, we started having a person come in and clean and
although it isn't cheap, it is probably the change that has made the biggest
improvement in our quality of life in a while.

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w00pla
IMHO mopping isn't really an issue - it is fairly fast. What is a drag is
sweeping or vacuuming the room before you mop.

That is surely something that can be done by an ordinary roomba?

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jrockway
My Roomba seems to pick up an order of magnitude more dust than any Swiffer
mop ever has. Brushes and a vacuum will do a better job cleaning than pushing
around a wet rag in a very nice pattern any day.

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catch23
I've done more repairs on my Roomba than any of my Swiffer mops. The gears on
the Roomba brushes keep getting clogged with long strands of fiber. My Roomba
model is pretty recent too -- only a year old.

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thibaut_barrere
Damn! I never had any issue with mine.

At first I thought there was one, except that I just forget to RTFM.

Sidenote: I think it's really important to clean the brushes on a regular
basis to keep these littl' things running.

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catch23
I guess we need a roomba companion robot to clean the roomba brushes. Who
cleans the cleaner?

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melling
We are very close to having consumer robots drive a burst of innovation. We
need the Apple II of robotics then we're off!

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rick_2047
It wasn't only the Apple II we first need something like an Altair 8800 an oh,
a Homebrew Computer (robotics?) club so we can have those 37 companies opened
by its members.

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nvoorhies
The homebrew robotics club meets the last Wednesday of every month at NASA
Ames in Mountain View. It's pretty interesting to drop in on.

<http://www.hbrobotics.org/>

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adamhowell
Here's the URL for Mint: <http://www.mintcleaner.com/>

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ajg1977
Looks like it'll do a great job of all the furniture-free rooms with perfect
90 degree corners I don't have!

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spicyj
It'll do a great job of making sure all the rooms you don't have are perfectly
clean, no matter whether they have 90 degree angles or not!

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DanielBMarkham
I'm still not sold on household robots yet.

Looking out from where I'm sitting, I see hardwood floors, throw rugs,
carpeting, and lots of accumulated, moving household detritus brought in by
the family. Shoes lying haphazardly. Afghans partially off the couch and
touching the floor.

The point isn't that I have a messy house, but that it's really difficult to
isolate one function, say swiffering, and make it work, because it's related
to a bunch of other functions, like putting out the cat, or picking up the
living room.

Perhaps it makes sense in a bigger, more empty house, filled by people who
don't leave lots of things askew. Don't know.

I'm betting in 10-15 years we'll start seeing some multi-function household
robots -- perhaps that can pickup and clean. Once they reach 3 or 4 related
functions instead of just one, I can see them making more sense.

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CapitalistCartr
I already see robots that have the mechanical agility and dexterity needed, In
3-4 years the average appliance robot will have a computing CPU comparable to
today's desktop computer, and the price of that dexterity will be affordable.
I doubt I'll be waiting 10 years to get a practical automatic cleaning device.

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dnsworks
We still don't have flying cars in our driveways. Because of this fact,
popularscience and popularmechanics are forever discredited.

I really want my flying car!

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thibaut_barrere
We won't have flying cars - we will have eco-friendly flying bikes!

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dnsworks
I just had a nightmare of a flying critical mass. Self-righteous hipsters
blocking the air-roads to make a point. That point will be, "Hey! We're
assholes, look at us!"

