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.
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.
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.
> 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?
It's smarter to adapt to the future. If you have the choice, have no carpets, all furniture on legs at least 10cm high and no door thresholds. Or buy one robot for each connected area in the house.
Also at the same time as you're doing something else. I often run the roomba as I clean other stuff or do the dishes when I prepare for a visitor. If you run it daily or every other day, the first couple of days it's full of dust and hair, then less and less. I view this as evidence that it's needed.
I don't dare keep it on a schedule nowadays, because I have kids who leave stuff on the floor everywhere, including charging cables for phones that can get tangled up in the roomba. What I usually do is a quick check under the couch and tv bench, then start it manually when I leave for work.
So we have a roomba, and hands down that's one of my favourite devices that we own - we just pretty much never have to hoover downstairs, it starts automatically at 9am every morning, we come home to a clean house, it's amazing. When we need to clean the upstairs bedrooms I can just leave it there, press start, and it does its thing and we can go and have dinner in the meantime. Yes, you still have to hoover manually from time to time. No, it doesn't do corners very well. But the fact that it can automatically clean at least one level of your house every single day is just incredible.
I have a Roomba s9 and a Dyon v10 in a 48sqm apartment. The Roomba does not replace the Dyson, but in terms of floors the Dyson is mostly reserved for spot-cleaning. The S9 gets all the edges, and goes around each table and chair leg (though I prefer to put the chairs up on the table for easier reach).
The only thing I hate is that it gets stuff trapped in there so easily. It is meant to have some sort of anti-cord-catching technology, but unless I am very careful I will find it eating a charger or a cat toy or something. It also takes longer than my handheld vacuum, but I don't mind that - often I just quickly pick things up before I run out to the store and let it run as I leave, and then come home to a vacuumed apartment.
My cats also prefer the Roomba even though the noise is comparable. They hide from the Dyson, but couldn't give a crap about the robot running around.
My housemate and I have the exact same vacuum as OP: a Eufy Robovac 30C.
1) It runs around our flat which I think we could vacuum well in about 15-20 minutes, perhaps similar to yours in size.
2) The vacuum happily bumbles around under our table and chairs and it seems to do a pretty good job. If we want it to clean where the chairlegs are, we just move the chairs against the wall the night before and move them back the following evening when we get back from work.
3) I feel like this is a cheap shot: it doesn't clean bathtubs or toilet bowls either (and like windowsills, it doesn't advertise to clean those, either).
4) No. It may be round, but it has two rotating brushes placed towards the front which get dust and crumbs out of corners, but the brush/vacuum portion itself does not reach right to the edges of the machine, so you're unlikely to get deep cleaning on the edges of carpets.
Overall I'm very impressed with it: it consistently comes back with a lot of dust and crumbs in its bin (we run it Mon, Wed, Fri), replacement parts (e.g. brushes) are cheap from the usual suspects in China, the edge cleaning is more intelligent than discussed by the linked article, and the floor under our sofa (a heavy 3-seater) has never been so consistently dust-free.
It doesn't 100% remove the need for a manual clean/vacuum completely, you still have to run over the places it doesn't get - occasionally - and yes obviously it doesn't do raised surfaces, windowsills, stairs or the upper corners of the ceiling... and obviously how much benefit you get depends on your home layout.
We've the exact same model as the article, bought on a sale last year for ~£180, and have been incredibly satisfied. The difference between a once a week/fortnight deeper clean and having it run over every day (before we get up!) has been incredibly obvious. It has also added an... incentive to avoid floor clutter.
The value proposition is that they can do 90% of the job with 10% of the effort. It takes me 1-2 minutes to pick up stray socks and usb cords and start the vacuum right before I walk out the door for work. The things it doesn't do can be dealt with with a broom and duster, and that ends up being very infrequent.
It is especially noticeable if you have a cat or dog. Even through weekly cleaning with a powerful "normal" vacuum cleaner won't help with everyday hair and dust accumulation. And personally I'm often too lazy even for a once per week cleaning. This thing (I have Roomba 960) collects most of the dirt in the most visible places. It really makes a difference. And corners don't matter in a big picture where every furniture item collects a ton of dust in hard to reach places.
I'm in the same boat as you are, with the same objections and all.
But overall I found we end up vacuuming the flat a lot more now that we have the roborok than before, so that's a big plus for me.
My wife spent half the money we spent on the roborok on a cordless samsung manual vacuum cleaner that broke in a year; I'm convinced I've seen the light now and that robot vacuuming is the future.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
This is something I’ve come to appreciate about my roomba. It trains me to keep my floor tidy. I don’t have kids, though, so it’s doable. Little guy sure loves to eat cables.
I don't know your particular setup, of course—but personally I quickly stopped worrying that the floor is occupied by something—unless it's small enough to be gobbled by the vac. The reason being, even if it's there today, I'll probably move it tomorrow or in a few days, and the robot will clean the spot after that. I guess someone could even split out a corner for toys with those infrared divisors, and occasionally let the robot loose in there manually.
Might be an application for more advanced computer vision in vacuums—to figure out which things are not to be sucked up. Though it smells of generic AI.
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.
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.
I think my family is unfortunately going to have to wait for some sort of robot with a snow shovel attachment and a big bucket to go dump everything in.
We used to have a roomba, first edition, before kids, but it got broken after a year, the first kid came and we have not been clean since.
By the way, in regard to removing larger items (as opposed to small ones that could be eaten by the vac), I'd also like to note that the floor doesn't really get dusty under those items. Because, of course, dust collects on the items instead. So there's no even particular reason to shuffle things around if the robot can find its way around them—and judging by my cat's relationship with the vac, the latter can go around plenty of things that are getting in its way.
My girlfriend left a cable hanging out of the front of the playstation, I came home to find the robovac hanging vertically halfway to the shelf having consumed the usb cable and started climbing up.
> If it misses a spot today, it will get it tomorrow.
One of the complaints about the smarter robot vacuums (like ones that map the house) is that they consistently miss the same spots every time. I think the dumb "bounce off the walls randomly" algorithm is actually the best one for this kind of product.
One actual problem I had with a most basic Roomba(6xx) was it was banging a shelf in the room at exact same angle each run every day, which eventually toppled a thing on it and splayed water all around.
I felt like writing a automobile recall notice that says “inappropriate X leading to Y after Z repeats” of which X seems pretty benign item like a wire sheath was just one step too thin or a strap was too tight by a notch.
Damn those things are consistent and it’s extraordinary how powerful consistency is...
I wonder how you'd compute/reason about/define the axis point dividing the complexity of remembering to move random items around and the complexity of just doing the vacuuming yourself.
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.
Or you know, it's tongue in cheek. Relationships are not formal, both me and my wife say things to each other which might look "off" without context, but obviously are absolutely fine. You read about a slice of someone's life and try to find issues with what you're reading, you're always going to find them.
"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.
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?
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.
It vacuums in laps, no random fumbling around and hoping you've gotten the room. We have a longhair cat and I run it around the apartment every couple days, filling entirely with cat hair every time from one cat in a hardwood floor apartment. It's been great.
It keeps getting better, too! The new update makes the S5 basically the same as the newer model (except that it's louder)... I had the original RoboRock and it worked really well. We replaced the battery and gave it to my wife's grandmother, then bought the S5 thinking the mop feature would be in some way useful, but I'm still happy with how well the S5 tracks its brush/filter lifespan and the software upgrades!
I like the mop feature. It is far from a true mopping, but still the floor feels less dusty than after just using the vacuum alone. That said, it may be a placebo effect on my part. I should do a blind test someday.
The problem with the mop feature is that it completely defeats the purpose of having an unattended robot keep your whole house clean, since you have to constantly refill the water reservoir, and it can't transition between carpet and hard floors without getting water on your carpet.
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.
The Neato and RoboRock vacuums are the only ones I recommend for their efficient navigation. Although I had three different Neatos die on me, so now I only use RoboRock.
Neato has been doing localization/mapping based vacuum since earlier, so they're obviously more sophisticated. But anecdotally with the state of the floor as the metric, 622 seems to do better than XV-11 despite being horribly dumb.
I had a Roomba sometime after 2006 and it was dumb but not in a bad way. It had a drop sensor, bump sensor, and tire sensors. It would primarily move in a switch back overlapping pattern and had a couple different fallback patterns that would kick in if the bump sensor triggered to frequently. It didn't necessarily hit 100% of space in the first try but it could autodock and recharge, and had a couple invisible walls to cordon it off.
It got stuck occasionally and needed to be rescued but once you knew what it got stuck on you could clean up, as you would with normal vacuuming, and it would be mostly fine.
The newer robot vacuums have a lot more tech but don't seem to have improved upon the basic functionality much. They still get stuck a lot, have trouble with deep pile carpet, and don't get everything.
So I don't know which one you have, but my mum bought herself the S9+ for christmas and wow, we were actually betting that it will fail as she lives in a huge house with a relatively complex layout(the living room has a circular shape with multiple entrances and central staircase) but nope, the robot deals with all of it fine. It takes longer than the 2 hour battery life to clean it all, but that's not a problem - it goes back to the base, empties its own bin, recharges, and then continues where it left off. It's truly amazing in terms of how well the mapping deals with that house, it shouldn't be that good.
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.
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.
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.
This. I use a bag free (manual) vacuum and I even though I can manage it without water and not create too much airborne dust, if you just spray water it slightly it will stick to eachother and become big balls.
Shark IQ has a bin in the dock. It self-empties with a blower each time it docks. Empty that over the bin in the garage once a month (just pick it up like a suitcase with the handle, carry it out, press the button on the side and the bottom trapdoor opens and whoosh! all the dust outside in the bin).
my xiaomi has a separate dust bin that you can remove from the unit and open elsewhere. I just stick my hands in the trash bin and open it there. For the upright dyson vacuum which I use on higher pile carpet that clogs the robot, I have to take the canister to the large trash can outside because dust gets absolutely everywhere.
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.
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.
Is rooting it worth it? I have one but I haven't bothered with rooting it yet. It would be worth it if I could start-stop it locally, as the app has to go through China and the latency is ~2 seconds, which is terrible.
Most Xiaomi smart-devices speak a protocol called miIO. There are several libraries/bindings for your favorite languages/tools as well as a nice CLI tool[0].
The only tricky part is getting the device token[1]. But once you have that it's smooth sailing.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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).
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.
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?
- 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.
Yeah, no kidding. I'd rather deal with all of the other problems (which aren't really problems as I'm not liable anyway), than risking getting a counterfeit product from Amazon. Also, more websites need to implement Apple Pay.
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.
> "Will I have to register an account? Will I have to take time unsubscribing from the email lists they sign me up for?"
Registering an account would shoo me away too, but with PayPal and a study that showed this'll scare 75% of potential customers away, that mostly seems to be a thing of the past. Subscription lists in the EU have been greatly reduced by GDPR. Some still offend this, granted, but they are occuring less and less.
> "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?"
The bureaucratic things you mention are governed by law here in Germany, so I needn't bother with that, for their (prolonged) existence presumes compliance. The technical security details are legit concerns in my opinion, too. OTOH, sticking to one merchant brings with it the risks of mono-cultures.
> "Will any of those pages be broken, forcing me to start over?"
Come on.
> "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."
I usually can plan such purchases in advance, that a delay of even a week doesn't bother me. Parcel delivery services in Germany rarely require more than 5 working days for national shipments.
> "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. "
For this, I appear to have eBay. I feel they grant more autonomy to the merchant, which I believe to be actually better for the customer in the long-run. Amazon feels closer to the customer, but such a customer strategy runs the risk of a bait-and-switch to the disadvantage of the customer, once their monopoly solidifies.
You just countered my list with a list of "this usually doesn't happen" responses. But sometimes they do, and it adds up. And don't get me started on eBay, where about 15% of stuff I've bought has gotten lost somewhere in the void.
I don't like it. I also don't have time to run all over town (or web) trying to find a highly specific bicycle seat post, or go to every sporting goods store to get the one brand of bouldering chalk I like, or every housewares store shopping for the specific coffee grinder that will fit in my 300sq-foot apartment.
Maybe I should go Thoreau and live in a cabin, but until then I'm very busy. I do a lot of other things to adapt my life to try and improve the general world, but ecommerce habits just isn't making the cut yet.
Can you help me understand how you know the other companies are better?
There's no denying that Amazon is known for being not great to workers, especially warehouse staff who are hired as contractors. But long before Amazon existed I did temp factory and warehouse work for a couple of summers. I promise you that also varied from miserable to criminal. I have no reason to think a random vendor is better than Amazon here.
Reasonable people could differ, but my current thinking is I'm better off pressuring Amazon, who at least has a brand they care about, than to swap to whatever anonymous company is doing US fulfillment for a random Chinese manufacturer.
The arguments for ways other companies are better work both in and out of favor for them. Conversely, centralizing it (Amazon becomes a monopoly) also works both ways: It's possible worker conditions can be better or worse compared to the average standard, but with greater number of them in a single go.
Thus the counter-argument, for me at least, stands out, which is less volatility from a decentralized market, however, if a centralized market would turn out to have better employee conditions, then this reduced volatility would in turn work against other companies as an argument, and so we're back at square one.
History tells us that monopolies tend to ...treat their employees badly? I don't know and I think it depends on the company and market it serves, but my gut-feeling says yes and so, to me, less volatility sounds like the sanest gut-decision I can make.
It's up to each and everyone for themselves to decide, I guess.
When I stopped using Amazon two years ago I started using ebay almost exclusively. I've never received the wrong item or have had things gotten lost. Maybe I'm just lucky.
Even if thats the case, I would rather have an item get lost and wait for it to get reshipped than my experience with Amazon mailing me the wrong product and then waiting to mail it back, get a refund, and then order the right product.
When I'm on a site who's checkout doesn't complete, I spent a minute looking for another seller and buy it from them. I would rather use a minute looking somewhere else then waiting a few days because I have to return the wrong product to Amazon.
One of my concerns is on the security front, specifically credit card info, if PayPal isn't an option. I'm interested in trying out Privacy's one-time use credit cards to reduce that risk.
I'm in the US and I'm seeing $240 on both the manufacturer's website and Amazon (Sold by EufyHome and Fulfilled by Amazon). Amazon even has a $15 coupon.
I can even join Prime and then save $24, bringing it to a total of $39 in discount. And all I'd need to do is join the Amazon ecosystem and I'd probably even be one of the customers that Amazon would make a net loss on, to my gain!
Honestly, that just trips my too-good-to-be-true alarm bells. The times I'd need Amazon I can usually find a similarly priced competitor, where buying is more of a breeze and bliss than Amazon, having to work through the special conditions of coupons, terms, etc.
There was only one case in my experience, in 2013 or -14, where Amazon was the "only choice", when I "want-needed" a cheap China-made USB microscope, and Amazon had it, but not a single merchant on eBay. The device was quite fresh on the market, and about half a year later was also available on eBay. I waited.
...which is just a modern way of saying "sales agent", yes?
It's muddy, because AFAIK, anyone can write on Medium, so it's not immediately recognizable as marketing, correct? Which, I presume, is also part of the strategy.
It's a legit strategy, it's just that one needs to keep in mind to second-guess everything the author says, since it could be a paid ad. Something, something along the lines of commercial and independent reviewers. I guess it's a never-ending war that must be fought.
The manufacturer's website shows $239.99 for me, the post says he got it for under $200. I'm not sure how you get $40 cheaper from the manufacturer out of that.
In addition, checking the Internet Archive shows that the manufacturer had it listed for $269.99 in September 2019, two months after the post was written.
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..
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 158 ms ] thread15 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.
All that said, I really really want one!
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?
I don't dare keep it on a schedule nowadays, because I have kids who leave stuff on the floor everywhere, including charging cables for phones that can get tangled up in the roomba. What I usually do is a quick check under the couch and tv bench, then start it manually when I leave for work.
4; There is a side brush (maybe even two) on most models. For the exact reason you mention.
The only thing I hate is that it gets stuff trapped in there so easily. It is meant to have some sort of anti-cord-catching technology, but unless I am very careful I will find it eating a charger or a cat toy or something. It also takes longer than my handheld vacuum, but I don't mind that - often I just quickly pick things up before I run out to the store and let it run as I leave, and then come home to a vacuumed apartment.
My cats also prefer the Roomba even though the noise is comparable. They hide from the Dyson, but couldn't give a crap about the robot running around.
1) It runs around our flat which I think we could vacuum well in about 15-20 minutes, perhaps similar to yours in size.
2) The vacuum happily bumbles around under our table and chairs and it seems to do a pretty good job. If we want it to clean where the chairlegs are, we just move the chairs against the wall the night before and move them back the following evening when we get back from work.
3) I feel like this is a cheap shot: it doesn't clean bathtubs or toilet bowls either (and like windowsills, it doesn't advertise to clean those, either).
4) No. It may be round, but it has two rotating brushes placed towards the front which get dust and crumbs out of corners, but the brush/vacuum portion itself does not reach right to the edges of the machine, so you're unlikely to get deep cleaning on the edges of carpets.
Overall I'm very impressed with it: it consistently comes back with a lot of dust and crumbs in its bin (we run it Mon, Wed, Fri), replacement parts (e.g. brushes) are cheap from the usual suspects in China, the edge cleaning is more intelligent than discussed by the linked article, and the floor under our sofa (a heavy 3-seater) has never been so consistently dust-free.
We've the exact same model as the article, bought on a sale last year for ~£180, and have been incredibly satisfied. The difference between a once a week/fortnight deeper clean and having it run over every day (before we get up!) has been incredibly obvious. It has also added an... incentive to avoid floor clutter.
But overall I found we end up vacuuming the flat a lot more now that we have the roborok than before, so that's a big plus for me.
My wife spent half the money we spent on the roborok on a cordless samsung manual vacuum cleaner that broke in a year; I'm convinced I've seen the light now and that robot vacuuming is the future.
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.
See existing models here: https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/index.cgi
You can share your results as HTML if that's your thing.
EDIT: here are some examples by other people: https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/lon...
And here are some resources if you have a Xiaomi robot vacuum cleaner (also sold as RoboRock) https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud
In order to get the progression of the run, you could have an RGB LED sweeping through a color scale during the run.
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’.
But I usually don't vacuum, so overall I'm satisfied with my roborock.
Might be an application for more advanced computer vision in vacuums—to figure out which things are not to be sucked up. Though it smells of generic AI.
More than once I found it under my bed, a sock half swallowed in its intake.
Poor little guy didn't survive the container voyage from Australia to the UK.
We used to have a roomba, first edition, before kids, but it got broken after a year, the first kid came and we have not been clean since.
Post-kids, it takes 10 minutes to tidy the floor and 5 to vacuum it myself (and I do a better job), so it's not as much use.
One of the complaints about the smarter robot vacuums (like ones that map the house) is that they consistently miss the same spots every time. I think the dumb "bounce off the walls randomly" algorithm is actually the best one for this kind of product.
I felt like writing a automobile recall notice that says “inappropriate X leading to Y after Z repeats” of which X seems pretty benign item like a wire sheath was just one step too thin or a strap was too tight by a notch.
Damn those things are consistent and it’s extraordinary how powerful consistency is...
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.
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?
I honestly have no idea how Roomba is still in business
It got stuck occasionally and needed to be rescued but once you knew what it got stuck on you could clean up, as you would with normal vacuuming, and it would be mostly fine.
The newer robot vacuums have a lot more tech but don't seem to have improved upon the basic functionality much. They still get stuck a lot, have trouble with deep pile carpet, and don't get everything.
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?
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.
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.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003M2F7NI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_z5...
This also cleans the filter really well, letting it last over a year.
https://librervac.org/
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.
It runs Ubuntu, you can root it. And even get spotify running on it.
https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud
https://medium.com/@anxodio/how-to-get-spotify-working-on-yo...
Most Xiaomi smart-devices speak a protocol called miIO. There are several libraries/bindings for your favorite languages/tools as well as a nice CLI tool[0].
The only tricky part is getting the device token[1]. But once you have that it's smooth sailing.
[0] https://python-miio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/vacuum.html [1] https://python-miio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/discovery.html#...
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.
Also, I also had very little expectations in the beginning (just a bit less dust) but it did really amazing job.
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...
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.
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
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.
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?
Sure, I wish I could claim otherwise, but in my experience, it's almost never worth going for one-stop buys :/
- 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.
Registering an account would shoo me away too, but with PayPal and a study that showed this'll scare 75% of potential customers away, that mostly seems to be a thing of the past. Subscription lists in the EU have been greatly reduced by GDPR. Some still offend this, granted, but they are occuring less and less.
> "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?"
The bureaucratic things you mention are governed by law here in Germany, so I needn't bother with that, for their (prolonged) existence presumes compliance. The technical security details are legit concerns in my opinion, too. OTOH, sticking to one merchant brings with it the risks of mono-cultures.
> "Will any of those pages be broken, forcing me to start over?"
Come on.
> "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."
I usually can plan such purchases in advance, that a delay of even a week doesn't bother me. Parcel delivery services in Germany rarely require more than 5 working days for national shipments.
> "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. "
For this, I appear to have eBay. I feel they grant more autonomy to the merchant, which I believe to be actually better for the customer in the long-run. Amazon feels closer to the customer, but such a customer strategy runs the risk of a bait-and-switch to the disadvantage of the customer, once their monopoly solidifies.
You just countered my list with a list of "this usually doesn't happen" responses. But sometimes they do, and it adds up. And don't get me started on eBay, where about 15% of stuff I've bought has gotten lost somewhere in the void.
Maybe I should go Thoreau and live in a cabin, but until then I'm very busy. I do a lot of other things to adapt my life to try and improve the general world, but ecommerce habits just isn't making the cut yet.
There's no denying that Amazon is known for being not great to workers, especially warehouse staff who are hired as contractors. But long before Amazon existed I did temp factory and warehouse work for a couple of summers. I promise you that also varied from miserable to criminal. I have no reason to think a random vendor is better than Amazon here.
Reasonable people could differ, but my current thinking is I'm better off pressuring Amazon, who at least has a brand they care about, than to swap to whatever anonymous company is doing US fulfillment for a random Chinese manufacturer.
Thus the counter-argument, for me at least, stands out, which is less volatility from a decentralized market, however, if a centralized market would turn out to have better employee conditions, then this reduced volatility would in turn work against other companies as an argument, and so we're back at square one.
History tells us that monopolies tend to ...treat their employees badly? I don't know and I think it depends on the company and market it serves, but my gut-feeling says yes and so, to me, less volatility sounds like the sanest gut-decision I can make.
It's up to each and everyone for themselves to decide, I guess.
Even if thats the case, I would rather have an item get lost and wait for it to get reshipped than my experience with Amazon mailing me the wrong product and then waiting to mail it back, get a refund, and then order the right product.
When I'm on a site who's checkout doesn't complete, I spent a minute looking for another seller and buy it from them. I would rather use a minute looking somewhere else then waiting a few days because I have to return the wrong product to Amazon.
Honestly, that just trips my too-good-to-be-true alarm bells. The times I'd need Amazon I can usually find a similarly priced competitor, where buying is more of a breeze and bliss than Amazon, having to work through the special conditions of coupons, terms, etc.
There was only one case in my experience, in 2013 or -14, where Amazon was the "only choice", when I "want-needed" a cheap China-made USB microscope, and Amazon had it, but not a single merchant on eBay. The device was quite fresh on the market, and about half a year later was also available on eBay. I waited.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22592661
I mean...duh? Have you been living under a rock? Amazon affiliate has been a great passive income strategy for over a decade.
It's muddy, because AFAIK, anyone can write on Medium, so it's not immediately recognizable as marketing, correct? Which, I presume, is also part of the strategy.
It's a legit strategy, it's just that one needs to keep in mind to second-guess everything the author says, since it could be a paid ad. Something, something along the lines of commercial and independent reviewers. I guess it's a never-ending war that must be fought.
In addition, checking the Internet Archive shows that the manufacturer had it listed for $269.99 in September 2019, two months after the post was written.