Slashdot Mirror
New Electrolux Trilobite 2.0 Vacuum Robot
i4u writes "The first version of the Electrolux expensive vacuum robot was launched last May. Electrolux announced the new metallic green Trilobite 2.0 on their Swedish site. The Electrolux Trilobite 2.0 is programmable like a VCR, it also recognises stairs and offers smarter cleaning. Electrolux has carried out 200 improvements. Photos on I4U." And at this rate, perhaps MkIII will be out next spring.
It's, "Electrolux," not "Elextrolux."
The headline on the site reads "First self-propelled vacuum now in stores." I've had my Roomba for about a year, and it had already been around for awhile.
I'm always put off by products where the first promo description I read is totally untrue.
Well, this is in the dictionary:
;)
robot, n: a mechanism that can move automatically.
So I guess there is no line
The I4U article points out another difference. "The Trilobite can recharge itself. The robot finds its way back to the charging station and automatically docks-on." That takes care of something that always bothered me about the Roomba but it's not $1640 worth of cool...
I bought an electrolux perhaps 6 years ago, it still works liek brand new today. My aunt however has bought about 5 vacumes varying from hoover, to the wind tunnel thing paying an average of $200 a pop. I'm not saying this is the reason it costs so much but those things are built like world war two battle ships.
Meet RoboMop.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Maybe you should invest in a closet, probably something with drawers (and actually use it!) before forking over 2 grand for a vacuum cleaner. But seriously, the manual for the old, red trilobite explicitly warned the user not to leave stuff they had rather not sucked up on the ground.
If you're in Stockholm and interested in the construction of the this robot check out the Swedish Technical Museum (No English web page). 6 months ago it had a room sized display with English description showing how the vacuum cleaner was designed and built. There was also a very cool display on robots in general with dozens of different working robots and hundreds of toys. A fun museum for geeks.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
Er, because robot is useful and the roomba sucks. And I don't mean that in a good way ;-)
;-) and instead consider a large office which currently employs cleaners to come in and clean/vacuum every day. How much do you think this costs? Say they spend one hour vacuuming per floor, at perhaps $10/hr, a five floor office costs $50/day. And note that while they may be paid only $10 or less per hour, the cleaning company almost certainly charges them out at more (profit + wear and tear on machinery + uniform + admin). The robot at $1800 will take about a month to pay for itself -- suddenly the price sounds reasonable, no? Of course, the building still needs cleaners for other tasks, but if just the vacuuming was taking an hour... Certain local politicians forgot that here with 'self cleaning' toilets, but I digress...
The Roomba just goes around in increasing circles and copes really badly with anything like furniture. (Excercise: See if you can work out its algorithm; hint: It doesn't need any internal state ala Brooks). Unless your room is approximately square or circular with gaps around the furniture, you can forget about it. Roomba needs far too much supervision, you (almost) may as well do the job yourself.
More useful are robots which can be programmed with a map. These can cope with pretty much any room, but you better not move your desk without telling them or the poor robot will get confused and go sulk in a corner.
Far more useful are the robots which build a map of their environment as they go because they can be turned on and left. I believe this robot fits into that category (though it isn't the first).
Forget for a moment you doing the vacuuming at home (or your mum doing it
As to your idea of fighting roombas. Remember that algorithm I got you to work out at the start? It ain't going to make very good fights, is it?