Slashdot Mirror
Floor Vacuum Robot for $200
abhikhurana writes "MSNBC is running a review of Roomba,
supposedly the first intelligent 'floor vac', as in a cross between vacuum
cleaner and a robot. I think its especially suited for lazy bums like me. Just
let it loose, sitback and enjoy. There is also a video of how it cleans the
floors, which requires windows media player (what else?) to watch it. It seems
that the robo cleaner can indeed do that job for which it has been designed. A
related article on
Techreview has slightly more details
about how it works. There is also a website exclusively for
Roomba."
That my Aibo can plug itself back in, but this thing can't? Seriously, how hard would it be to remember a room, vacuum it, and return to a docking station while I'm at work? What good is this thing *unless* it does that? I want my vacuuming to be sort of like setting up a maintainance cron job to run at 3 AM.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Roomba's walk isn't guaranteed to cover an entire floor, but in practice it does a very good job.
So you only get the floor mostly clean. Seems like it could use some more work...
-Tolerate my intolerance
I love how they never test these in a real American Familys house. This thing wouldnt last a day around my kids.
Legos, flash cards, marbles, mcdonalds toys, stuffed animals with fluffy parts, video games and controllers, dirty clothes.
Now give me a robot that washs and folds clothes, and picks up kids toys, and I can use a Roomba. (And no Honey, you are not a Robot.)
My wife does a lot of sewing. How well can Roomba handle lots of thread on the floor? How about pins?
The problem isn't the vacuuming. It's the picking up that you have to do before you can vacuum.
The CEO interviewed says a 10x12 room takes 1/2 an hour to vaccuum. I can vaccuum my entire 1000 square foot apartment in about 3 minutes. It's just not that difficult. Id rather do it myself and be done in less than 5 minutes, than hear that thing's motor whirring and whining for 3 hours while it cleans every room in my house.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
electrolux has had prototypes since 1997...
see here
The whole idea that the entire world thought that the earth was flat until Columbus came around is a total and complete fabrication.
This story was invented by Washington Irving (yes the writer of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories) to show his contempt for the priesthood and for the conservative nature of the church and European nations. And guess what? It caught on and expanded to include everyone that lived before them.
Lets all ignore the fact that every time there was an eclipse that the shadow was round or that sailors from around the world would loose site of land as they sailed or that a Greek mathematician calculated the circumference of the earth and was only 52 miles off.
Jeffrey
Burton Russell
Has a very short piece but he says it best with
"A round earth appears at least as early as the sixth century BC with Pythagoras, who was followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others in observing that the earth was a sphere. Although there were a few dissenters--Leukippos and Demokritos for example--by the time of Eratosthenes (3 c. BC), followed by Crates(2 c. BC), Strabo (3 c. BC), and Ptolemy (first c. AD), the sphericity of the earth was accepted by all educated Greeks and Romans."
..which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably designed for cooling the blood-T P
And I can't just let the thing run all day at work, since the batteries only last 90 min! Guess I'll be vacuuming the old way for some time to come still....
Let it loose in one room each day, then finish up the remaining rooms (if you have more than 5 rooms) on the weekend.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
my house which measures in at about 2000 sq. ft,
is that without kitchen sq footage? what about bathrooms? i know some homebuilders add in the garage to their sqft measurements, do you vacuum closets? pantry? the tiled entryway? i know some people vacuum anything, even if it isn't carpeted, but we only sweep the tiled parts of our apartment.
probably not a whole lot knocked off there, and if you have enough furniture, i'm sure most people won't move the big heavy stuff to vacuum more than once or twice a year.
Free Webmail
Yeah, the host was obviously Unclear On The Concept of what the Roomba was designed to do. He just put it down and expected it to seek out the mess and clean it up in a 30 second spot, and appeared frustrated when it didn't.
Rather, this is one of those things you start up when you go off to work and you come home to a clean room. Much like the dishwasher. You shouldn't expect a lot of intelligence at a price point lower than most PDAs.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
The article makes reference to the fact that this is like the swimming pool vaccuums. I have a polaris for my pool and the path it takes is completely random, it isn't even smart enough to do things like and expanding circle, etc. However, after about 15-20 minutes it always has the pool completely cleaned. You'd be surprised at how well a random walk can cover an area. Plus, you really don't need to get every part of your floor 100% clean every time. If you do this every other day, you'll probably keep the floor clean enough that it won't show.
-no broken link