Roomba Robot Vacuum Gets Siblings

Victor Tramp writes "Apparently, the cute little robot vacuum by iRobot has siblings now! An article over at Forbes.com goes into some detail about the new Roomba models; featuring the Roomba Pro, which 'is an improvement on the original Roomba, including an intelligent navigation system..', and the Roomba Pro Elite, which is the '...new flagship model. It comes with a remote-control unit that lets you navigate the Roomba around the room, changing cleaning options as it goes.' I have one of the original Roombas, and it actually does a really good job!"

Comments

Packs

[rf0]

Now it would be cool that if you had some of these roming free in an office building and they communicated about what they had done the you could just havea small pack of the robots constatnly cleaning

Some sort of redundant bug system

Rus

Re:Packs

[CausticPuppy]

Good idea, but imagine getting off the elevator and seeing a swarm of these things just sitting there waiting for you under the control of Gene Simmons.

Outfits for the roomba?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Roomba may do a good job cleaning, but I'm sure it doesn't look very good in a little french maid outfit....um..unless you have a robot fetish or something, I guess.

Re:Outfits for the roomba?

[demonbug]

Ah yes, the classic Geek problem: Robovacuum or French Maid, Robovacuum or French maid...

Fortunately, I already have a girlfriend, so I guess I won't be needing that robovacuum.

(Only one slashdot reader was seriously injured due to the posting of this comment)

obligatory joke

[mirko]

If Microsoft made a vacuum cleaner, it'd be their only product which would not suck...

does it go to the recharger when low on juice?

[kaltkalt]

if it doesn't automatically move over to the re-charging unit when it's running low on power, self-recharge, and then automatically start cleaning again when fully charged, it's worthless IMO.

Re:does it go to the recharger when low on juice?

[ramk13]

Have you seen one? I've used the original. As far as I know they have no 'auto charging' capability. You pick it up when it dies and then plug it into the charger. It's very far from worthless though.

You just clean one or two rooms a day, and you don't have to watch it while it's doing it. It's very convenient, even without the auto recharge feature you are talking about. Features like intellegent autocharging and networking probably won't be in consumer vacuums for a little while. (Especially since a viable Roomba competitor hasn't popped up.)

Re:does it go to the recharger when low on juice?

[MoobY]

I've seen a demonstration of a robot vacuum cleaner a couple of weeks ago (I can't remember the brand, but it was a yellow robot). This vacuum robot did manage to go back to the recharger. But that was not the only thing it could do, it also dumped the collected dust into a container sitting in the recharger, so you never had to actually do anything with the robot, as it was able to feed itself and get rid of the dust. It was however a tad more expensive than the the roomba (but I can't remember the correct price tag either).

Re:does it go to the recharger when low on juice?

[allanj]

if it doesn't automatically move over to the re-charging unit when it's running low on power, self-recharge, and then automatically start cleaning again when fully charged, it's worthless IMO.

Are you seriously saying that not having to actually vacuum, but merely recharge and empty the thing, is worthless? The actual vacuuming is by far the most timeconsuming part of cleaning the floors.

Have you heard of the law of diminishing returns? One interpretation says that solving most of the problem is easy (and cheap), but solving the entire problem is hard (and costly). I'm pretty sure that devices such as you've required does exist (other posters refer to such units, but I have not seen specific links yet), but it probably costs WAAAY more than the lowly Roomba. Not to mention the fact that devices with more advanced capabilities - such as those mentioned by you - are more likely to fail because of unexpected situations that the developers were not given enough time to properly deal with.

Seems cheaper than we think

[neglige]

[...] but it's still a bit pricey [...]

I thought so, too - at first. But the article mentions that the Pro Elite (the 'flagship', other models might be even cheaper) will sell at $250. And that is - to my mind - an acceptable price. A good vacuum cleaner won't be much cheaper.

I really have to start thinking about getting one. Earlier models sold for several hundred or even thousand dollar. A test would be nice though, because my robo would have to deal with 2 cats (bonus points for hovering up to the sofa and cleaning all the hairs off it)...

Re:Interesting...

[nonmaskable]

It works great on the medium thickness carpet (as well as the wood and tile) in my home. Cleaning carpet seems to hit the battery harder than cleaning wood, so you can pretty much only get one large and one small room on a charge.

On any surface, it doesn't replace a once every few months hand cleaning with a regular vacuum, but for a once or twice a week cleaning, it really does work.

I told a friend

[cra]

. . . about this robot, and since he is single, he said that this would be the perfect product for any single guy. Until he found out that it is powered on only 30 wats. Then he found out that it probably don't suck that well. :-)

A mature product already exists

[CoderByBirth]

The Swedish house appliance manufacturer Electrolux has a model called Trilobite which has been around for a couple of years.

I haven't seen this sucker in action, but if memory serves me correctly it should be able to move around your home on flat surfaces, avoid obstacles and return to the power station.

Durability of Roomba?

[Channard]

One thing occurs to me regards the Roomba - just how well does it stand up to kids? It sounds like a great invention but knowing how much stress kids can put on pieces of equipment. Especially equipment that might attract their attention by moving around of its own accord? Clearly it can't be expected to withstand Little Billy pushing it downstairs just to see what would happen, but can the Roomba's withstand bumps and knocks?

Re:Durability of Roomba?

[Sparr0]

After intentionally disabling the ledge sensors in mine and having it take a tumble down a flight of stairs I can tell you that this is one of the most durable mobile appliances in my house, easily tougher than my normal vacuum cleaner.

The Karcher RoboCleaner is much better

[markus_baertschi]

I prefer the Karcher RoboCleaner for one important reason:

It requires almost no manual intervention

You just tell it how often it should go out and clean and once in a while you empty the dirt in the base station. No other interventions are necessary.

Il empties its dirt container itself and recharges itself automatically et the base station.

Details here

Markus

It's time for a Robotics category

[Onnimikki]

With so many robotics stories lately (Japan's Proposed 30-Year Robot Program, Robots for Air Force Protection, Swimming Cockroach Robot Developed, etc.), it's time that Slashdot made up a new category as opposed to filing them under "Upgrades".

Didn't like my Roomba

[Laur]

I bought a Roomba as soon as it came out and ended up returning it within a week. My experiences were thus:

1. It sucked at sucking. It would roll over the same piece of fuzz on the carpet several times and still not pick it up. It just plain didn't work too well. At best it could be a supplement to a regular vacuum, but I didn't think it was worth it.

2. It wasn't much quieter then a regular vacuum. You couldn't really do much while it was working, such as watch TV in the next room. You couldn't ignore it, it was just too loud. This might be okay for people who leave the house often and run it then, but if you're home and just don't like to vacuum this isn't gaining you much.

3. The heuristics didn't work to well. Maybe they worked great in the lab with a perfectly square room, but when it needs to work in the real world and go around furniture it seems to fail miserably. It would go over the same patch of floor 5 or 6 times, yet never go over the patch 5 feet away within the time allowed.

4. It couldn't transition from tile to carpet as advertised. It tried to go over at an angle, got stuck with one wheel on, one off, and proceeded to start rubbing a black rubber mark in my carpet (yes, the carpet/tile transition height was within advertised limits).

I know other people have these and love them, but these are my experiences (YMMV). I found that manually vacuuming and sweeping took much less time and did a much better job. Further, the Roomba can't replace manually sweeping and vacuuming, it can only supplement it, and IMHO the price is too high for that.

I certainly wish iRobot the best of luck with the Roomba, since success with this early model will lead to continuously improved products. I am certainly not against robotic appliances, I also have a Robomower and love it. It has many advantages over a manual mower and no drawbacks (except a bit higher price tag, but the benefits far outweigh this IMHO). It's very quit (I can run it at night), nearly maintenance free (it mulches while it cuts, no bag to empty, no engine to maintain), and completely replaces a standard mower. I long for the day when we have more products like this, but I just didn't think the first gen Roomba was it.