Roomba: a Robot Underfoot

On Jul 12, 2005, at 7:57 AM, James L. Ryan wrote:
> I'm going to admit right up front to being a Roomba sceptic.
> I can completely clean the room in no more than five minutes, moving
> the chairs as necessary, cleaning around the legs of the table, and
> cleaning right into the deepest part of the corners. How well and how
> fast will the Roomba do the same job?

Well, the Roomba can vacuum that space when you're at work. I doubt
you could do that manually, unless you work at home :)

I don't know how well it will operate with all those obstacles, but
at a minimum, I'm sure a lot of efficiencies can be gleaned from the
fact that it is an independent entity from you.

Mike

On 13/7/2005 2:57 AM, "James L. Ryan" <taliesinsoftmac.com> spake thus:

> In short, the Roomba appears to be an almost useless high-tech toy,
> doing a significantly inferior job than other tools, and costing
> significantly more than the tools it doesn't replace.

Hey, I didn't know that Microsoft made vacuum cleaners...

<ducks>

:)

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://public.xdi.org/=nigel.stanger

At 07:57 AM 07/12/2005 -0700, atlauren wrote:
>...in online discussions I've seen it postulated that for pile
>carpeting Roomba gets the top layer well enough, but it doesn't get
>deep down like a regular vacuum will

Consumer Reports did a brief review of the Roomba last year. They made this
point based on actual tests, not just postulation. Their bottom line: "The
Roomba cleans uncluttered bare floors, but even some cheap vacuums
outperform it on both floors and carpets".

Clean up the clutter before letting it loose? Protect the fringe of our
9x13' carpet? Never gonna happen here. Heck, if I had a robot which would
clean up the clutter, I'd happily do the vacuuming.

Edward
Art Works by Melynda Reid: http://paleo.org

At 19:19 -0700 UTC, on 2005/07/12, Nigel Stanger wrote:

> On 13/7/2005 2:57 AM, "James L. Ryan" <taliesinsoftmac.com> spake thus:
> Hey, I didn't know that Microsoft made vacuum cleaners...
>
> <ducks>

The one thing Microsoft may ever make that does not suck will be a vacuum
cleaner.


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

On 12-07-2005 16:57:27, Andrew Laurence wrote:


>...in online discussions I've seen it postulated that for pile
>carpeting Roomba gets the top layer well enough, but it doesn't get
>deep down like a regular vacuum will; if we allow the SAT moment,
>Roomba is to brushing one's teeth as a regular vacuum is to flossing.
>The former is much better than nothing at all, but both are needed
>for full maintenance.

As it's battery-powered, this is to be expected. There's no way the Roomba can move as
much air as a regular vacuum.
Battery life is also a concern. It's bound to draw a lot of current from its battery,
which doen't help battery life: compare it with other battery-operated vacuums
(dustbuster?) which are toast after a few years, and those aren't used as regularly as a
Roomba.
Is the battery replaceable?

Harro de Jong

On 12 Jul 2005, at 08:57 , atlauren wrote:

What I want to know, however... when do we get a TidBITS article on the Dyson vacuum? :-)

As soon as Dyson sneds me a demo unit I'll happily write up a article on it. But I can't afford the ~$500 to buy it myself.

-- ワシ�上陸��

--On July 13, 2005 7:18:14 AM -0700 Sander Tekelenburg
<tekelenbeuronet.nl> wrote:

> The one thing Microsoft may ever make that does not suck will be a vacuum
> cleaner.

Yeah, it'll blow.

Kevin

[Ba dum-dump! Kevin will be here all week, folks. Please try the veal, and don't forget to tip your server. -Andrew]

At 7:57 AM -0700 7/12/05, James L. Ryan wrote:
>In short, the Roomba appears to be an almost useless high-tech toy,
>doing a significantly inferior job than other tools, and costing
>significantly more than the tools it doesn't replace.

That may be true for you, but as our review clearly stated, it's not
true for us or many other people. A lot of folks we ran into at
Macworld Boston had Roombas and love them.

The key thing is that Roomba works when you aren't present. Prepping
a room for vacuuming is far faster and easier than actually doing it,
particularly in the hot weather we've been having. It's no different
than a dishwasher - you can do a better job washing the dishes by
hand, even using less soap and water and treating your dishes better.
But it's a lot easier to prep the dishwasher (by loading it) and run
it than it is to wash all the dishes by hand. Or at least it is for
our family of three eating three meals at home; if you live alone and
generate only a few dishes a day or you're particular about your
dishes, a dishwasher might be overkill.


At 7:57 AM -0700 7/12/05, atlauren wrote:
>What I want to know, however... when do we get a TidBITS article on
>the Dyson vacuum? :-)

When they make one we don't have to run manually.


At 7:18 AM -0700 7/13/05, Edward Reid wrote:
>Consumer Reports did a brief review of the Roomba last year. They made this
>point based on actual tests, not just postulation. Their bottom line: "The
>Roomba cleans uncluttered bare floors, but even some cheap vacuums
>outperform it on both floors and carpets".

Yes, I'm sure that's true. We have a saying in our house. "Cleaner
than it was before." The Roomba isn't a HEPA unit, and it won't do
deep cleaning, but realistically, we just want the floors to look
decent. We'll still vacuum Tristan's room with the HEPA cannister
vacuum every so often (when we can find the floor) since he has
asthma. But for the rest of the house, cleaner than it was before is
a big step.


At 7:18 AM -0700 7/13/05, hjongtriview.nl wrote:
>Battery life is also a concern. It's bound to draw a lot of current
>from its battery,
>which doen't help battery life: compare it with other battery-operated vacuums
>(dustbuster?) which are toast after a few years, and those aren't
>used as regularly as a
>Roomba.
>Is the battery replaceable?

Yes, it is.

cheers... -Adam

cheers... -Adam

--
At Macworld Expo; responses will be concise/delayed through 18-Jul.

--
New Take Control ebooks! ........... http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
     Take Control of Tiger with four ebooks about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger!
_____________________________________________________________________
Adam C. Engst: I publish TidBITS, write books, and make sure the
acetidbits.com right people know each other in the Mac industry.
Me: http://www.tidbits.com/adam/ TidBITS: http://www.tidbits.com/

The battery is replaceable.

OK, I hate cleaning, and I have been yearning for a robot vacuum
cleaner for years, so I bought the Roomba.

The bottom line is that while it does not work as well on the carpet
at our office as our conventional vacuum cleaner would, it gets used
far more often.

I turn it on when my staff (this is a four-person office) go home.
When I get up for some reason, I pull out the chairs or whatever and
set it going in a new area. It's quite painless, since I can keep it
moving along while doing other things.

Because it does tend to tangle in cables, I have had to organize them
better and get them out of the way, doubtless a good thing. Because
it tends to knock down a pile of papers that I plan to get around to
sorting out someday, I either admit defeat and dump them or sort
them. Facilitating the Roomba helps me be a bit neater.

Home is all one one level, hardwood and tatami. It does a good job
there, except that it cannot scoot through the legs of the dining
room chairs.

Again, thanks to it, stuff gets vacuumed far more often. Particularly
when two persian cats are moulting, that is a blessing.

BTW, the cats are elderly but have adapted to the Roomba well. One
decided to attack it at first, then concluded that it was boring. The
other watched it carefully and then ignored it. Both hide when the
regular vac comes out; apparently the Roomba sound is less ear
splitting.

I also got my daughter a Roomba. Her downstairs is about twice the
size of our entire home (she lives in Texas, we live in Japan). The
Roomba tends to get a little overwhelmed with all that space, but she
reports that if she sets it up to do only the kitchen, say, it goes
to town on the dog and cat hair and is well worth the bother.

ruth

I am a Roomba fan. We got our Discovery model for Christmas and after I
learned how to clean it (completely) and most of its operating quirks i
became the Roomba master and I am very pleased (iRobot customer service
is super!). My daughter pointed out that the Roomba is more a sweeper
than a vacuum and I think comparisons to full-size vacuums are somewhat
off base. The Roomba is more like an automated helper and ours runs
almost every day. We live in a small house with short pile rugs and bare
floors. The house is much cleaner now and looks better. Our cats have
long since gotten used to the Roomba. The operating noise doesn't bother
me much and it only stays in my office for a few minutes and then moves
on. It does get tangled up with raggedy rugs, cords, and draping spreads
that it tries to wind up in its various brushes. We value its cleaning so
much that we have made small accommodations to help prevent the Roomba
from getting stuck. A pillow under one couch, tidy cords, 2-IR fences, a
closed door and I take up 2 small oriental rugs that have very long
fringed ends. We live in a dry, dusty, semi-arid desert and the Roomba
picks up more that a cup of dirt, leaves, animal hair, cat litter, etc
every day and its performance is very satisfying.

I guess if you are a person that vacuums your space everyday the Roomba
may not be of much use to you. If you are like me, don't like to vacuum,
put it off, and rush through it when needed the Roomba may be very useful
and fun. It is smart enough to be entertaining and definitely returns
high cleaning value for the effort of maintaining it. In my experience it
must be cleaned after each use to be effective and this cleaning takes
about 10 minutes. I use a cat brush and scissors to clean the Roomba
brushes, compressed air to blow out the dust, and a plastic cleaner spray
to clean the various accessible plastic parts in the dirt flow path.

The Roomba is certainly an early adopter sort of gadget and any nit-
picker worth his salt will be able to find many faults with it. If you
are looking for an actual working robot that does something useful, is
"fun for the whole family", and requires your (loving?) attention to keep
it in peak operating condition, the Roomba may just be your automata.

        So we've thought about Roombas a few times, but they're too
expensive for an impulse buy.

        The article got me thinking again. We have all hardwood
floors, which seem to be the favored venue for robovacs. Amy and I
are both (mildly) allergic to our cat, so that's a big argument for
more (automatic) vacuuming. We have a 2-year-old, which means food
appears under the dining table at least a couple times/day.

        I found a review, which finds the Discovery (SE) best of the
crop. Their pricing/purchase page points out that you can get a D/SE
for $300 from Hammacher Schlemmer, with life-time guarantee. The
non-SE Discovery, on the other hand (same except its wall mount
doesn't charge) can be found for $250 from Amazon. $50 for the
charging stand and lifetime guarantee sound worthwile.

http://www.roombareview.com/reviews/roundup.shtml
http://www.roombareview.com/discoveryse/best-price-roomba-discovery-se.shtml

        But I wonder about the not-yet-shipping Scooba, which
*sounds* like a Roomba that mops (we have only wood and tile floors),
and the Roomba Scheduler (shipping next month?), which adds weekly
start times for the Roomba (the new models are apparently pretty good
about returning to the base charger before they run out of juice).
The idea of having it clean at 10am, after we've gone to work &
school, is pretty attractive, although I'm not sure it would really
find the way back to base down our long hallway...

http://www.irobot.com/consumer/scooba_sneak_preview.cfm
http://www.irobot.com/consumer/product_detail.cfm?prodid=52

        I'll see what iRobot customer service says about using a
Scooba to vacuum.


        I have to wonder who buys the $1,800 Trilobite vacuum, which
sounds and looks remarkably like a Roomba.

http://www.hammacher.com/publish/10879.asp?promo=71579


                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

> In short, the Roomba appears to be an almost useless high-tech toy,
> doing a significantly inferior job than other tools, and costing
> significantly more than the tools it doesn't replace.

While I don't have a Roomba (and haven't used one), from the descriptions,
it sounds like it just suits some people more than others. For example, I
don't really mind having things lying around the place, as long as they're
tidy and the house is clean. My wife, however, hates that, and needs
everything put away in its place every day and can't stand having visible
cables. So we already start/end the day with everything that the Roomba
would trip over (all carpet/tile, no rugs) put away somewhere - so the 'tidy
up' part of using the Roomba wouldn't be any extra effort at all.

I suspect (particularly newer) mac users might tend towards the overly-tidy
type of people, simply because new macs are so pretty to look at, and that's
appeals to these people. Just a guess, of course :)

What I want is one of these robotic lawnmowers that people are working
on...I'll take vacuuming over lawn mowing any day :)

=Tony.Meyer

On Jul 22, 2005, at 11:55 AM, Tony Meyer wrote:

> What I want is one of these robotic lawnmowers that people are working
> on...I'll take vacuuming over lawn mowing any day :)


[Yeah, I want a robot lawn mower too, but our lawns are much more complex than our house. And we have a pond, making a mistake more serious. :) -Adam]


Rodney Brooks (one of the cofounders of iRobot and head of the MIT
robotics lab for years) wrote an interesting book called "Flesh and
Machines : How Robots Will Change Us". He actually talks about using
one of the lawnmowers and his experience with it in one of the later
chapters.

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/037572527X/
qid=1122048373/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4629203-0224858?v=glance&s=books>

It's an interesting read no matter if you are interested it the ideas
and trials behind the Roomba. Starts a little slow with the history,
but is very readable and flows when Brooks relates his own experiences.

Steve Cochran

>> In short, the Roomba appears to be an almost useless high-tech toy,
>> doing a significantly inferior job than other tools, and costing
>> significantly more than the tools it doesn't replace.

For me, the problem with vacuuming is mostly dealing with the cords, weight, and overall hassle of
retrieving and using a traditional vacuum. Actual vacuum time is not the issue.

I have hardwood floors that need sweeping regularly (two cats and a 90-year-old grandfather) but it
takes way too much time to deal with a regular vacuum for me to bother. Then I saw the Electrolux
Pronto 2-in-1 on HGTV and rushed out and bought it. I really like it.

    <http://www.electroluxusa.com/node35.asp?ProdID=27948>

No, it's not a robot, but it is battery-powered, and specifically designed to not be ugly so you
don't stick it away in a broom closet somewhere. Thus it's handy for instant use. Yesterday my dozing
Grandpa (he likes to combine sleeping and eating to save time ;-) dropped his cinnamon toast on the
floor, spilling cinnamon and sugar and toast crumbs everywhere. I had the mess cleaned up in thirty
seconds with the Pronto (that time includes getting the Pronto and putting it back on its charging
stand)!

The Pronto is far more powerful than most handheld rechargeable vacuums, and it has two speeds, but
it's not as good on carpet (for deep cleaning you'd need a real vacuum). It's ideal for bare floors
or for a quick carpet go-over when you suddenly find out company is arriving in five minutes and
there's cat hair everywhere. The way the upright model is designed it feels like a real vacuum (it
has moving brushes on the base and a neat swivel head that lets it get under things) but it only
weighs 6 pounds so it's no chore to use.

I found many of the design touches on the Pronto to be remarkably Mac-like, from the excellent manual
to thoughtful, simple touches like using a screw on the base that can be turned with a coin (you
occasionally need to remove the brushes on the base for cleaning, so not requiring a screwdriver is
nice). There's also a cool neon blue charging light on the stand to let you know it's charging.

-- Marc

______________________________________________________________________
      Marc Zeedar * Publisher * REALbasic Developer Magazine
                    <http://www.rbdeveloper.com/>

At 10:53 PM -0700 7/21/05, Chris Pepper wrote:
> The article got me thinking again. We have all hardwood
>floors, which seem to be the favored venue for robovacs. Amy and I
>are both (mildly) allergic to our cat, so that's a big argument for
>more (automatic) vacuuming. We have a 2-year-old, which means food
>appears under the dining table at least a couple times/day.

Sounds like a pretty ideal situation, though you may also have lots
of 2-year-old generated floor clutter to pick up. On the other hand,
getting that off the floor regularly is never a bad thing. ;)

> I found a review, which finds the Discovery (SE) best of the
>crop. Their pricing/purchase page points out that you can get a D/SE
>for $300 from Hammacher Schlemmer, with life-time guarantee. The
>non-SE Discovery, on the other hand (same except its wall mount
>doesn't charge) can be found for $250 from Amazon. $50 for the
>charging stand and lifetime guarantee sound worthwile.
>
>http://www.roombareview.com/reviews/roundup.shtml
>http://www.roombareview.com/discoveryse/best-price-roomba-discovery-se.shtml

The lifetime guarantee is a good thing, I think, and $300 for it with
the SE sounds slightly cheaper than Sears. But if there's a Sears
nearby, it may be easier to do the swaps in person rather than
through the mail.

> But I wonder about the not-yet-shipping Scooba, which
>*sounds* like a Roomba that mops (we have only wood and tile floors),
>and the Roomba Scheduler (shipping next month?), which adds weekly
>start times for the Roomba (the new models are apparently pretty good
>about returning to the base charger before they run out of juice).

We really want to try the Scooba on our tile floors.

>The idea of having it clean at 10am, after we've gone to work &
>school, is pretty attractive, although I'm not sure it would really
>find the way back to base down our long hallway...

I can't say that it has always found its base in our house, but we
don't use the base most of the time, so it's a little hard to remember

> I have to wonder who buys the $1,800 Trilobite vacuum, which
>sounds and looks remarkably like a Roomba.
>
>http://www.hammacher.com/publish/10879.asp?promo=71579

The mind boggles.

cheers... -Adam

--
New Take Control ebooks! ........... http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
     Take Control of Tiger with four ebooks about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger!
_____________________________________________________________________
Adam C. Engst: I publish TidBITS, write books, and make sure the
acetidbits.com right people know each other in the Mac industry.
Me: http://www.tidbits.com/adam/ TidBITS: http://www.tidbits.com/

On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 1:51 pm -0700, Stephen A. Cochran wrote:

>[Yeah, I want a robot lawn mower too, but our lawns are much more
>complex than our house. And we have a pond, making a mistake more
>serious. :) -Adam]
>
>
>Rodney Brooks (one of the cofounders of iRobot and head of the MIT
>robotics lab for years) wrote an interesting book called "Flesh and
>Machines : How Robots Will Change Us". He actually talks about using
>one of the lawnmowers and his experience with it in one of the later
>chapters.

I believe the robotics lab's slogan was "fast, cheap and out of control". ;-)

TimH

We haven't talked much about Roomba for a while.

This news item caught my eye--and led me to think perhaps we were
better off as hunter-gatherers.

<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003918099_robot02.html>

So, do you worry when your Roomba calls for help?

   --John

On Oct 2, 2007, at 5:53 PM, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:

> We haven't talked much about Roomba for a while.
>
> This news item caught my eye--and led me to think perhaps we were
> better off as hunter-gatherers.
>
> <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/
> 2003918099_robot02.html>
>
> So, do you worry when your Roomba calls for help?

I really *hate* my Roomba. It's now sitting in its box unused and I
bought a Dyson DC07.

The Roomba really doesn't get along with pets. It chokes on pet hair
& pet toys. I found that I had to go around and pick up any cat toys,
move things out of the way, and set up virtual walls - almost 15
minutes of preparation - before I even started it. I then had to
watch it to make sure it didn't get into trouble and have to be
freed. When it finally finished a few hours later (if it didn't run
out of power first), cleaning it was a huge mess. It's a lot more
messy & difficult to clean than any other vacuum, especially if
there's lots of pet hair. In all, it took me longer in preparation &
cleaning than it would to just use a regular vacuum.

> I really *hate* my Roomba. It's now sitting in its box unused and I
> bought a Dyson DC07.

I did the exact same thing! I got so tired of trying to pull all the dog
hair off the roller. The Dyson is great. It takes less time to vacumn with
that, than cleaning the roomba.
Gail

On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Mike Cohen wrote:

> I really *hate* my Roomba.

I'm not fond of my upstairs neighbor's Roomba.

The first time I heard it, I thought there was a helicopter out the
window. After several minutes of looking outside with the crying baby in
my arm, I realized it was coming from the ceiling, not outside.

And it kept going, and going, and going, for what seemed like an hour.

So much for nap time that day.

At least a traditional vacuum tends to be done within a few minutes.

Noise might be a consideration if you have neighbors you want to be
polite to.

(Then again, crying babies may not be so fun for neighbors, but then I
prefer to think that's different... :-)


--
Chris Devers