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Dyson Preparing a Roomba Killer?
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist's technology blog reports that Dyson, the UK company that reinvented the vacuum cleaner, is recruiting robotics engineers. They're looking for people with experience of machine vision and mobile robots that create their own maps. Is Dyson hoping to take on the Roomba with a much more sophisticated machine?"
The people who clean my office walk around with a vacuum cleaner on their back and a cord trailing behind. I wonder if this will ever catch on for household use. It's surely a lot more practical than dragging the vacuum cleaner along behind you.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I LOVE my Dyson, especially the turbo-brush head attachment. A Roomba-esque Dyson with a turbo-brush would be awesome - not sure how much my cat would like it though, given her hatred of the standard Dyson.
Do current Roombas pick up pet hair well? And do pets like them? No-one I know owns a Roomba, they haven't really taken off here in Australia AFAIK...
The first one died after 26 months they fixed it for free, when it was out of the 2 year warranty
I have recently bought a second one when one of the bits fell off after another 9 years.
They are solid vac's that can pick up my wife's long hair from the carpet.
Ask a programmer about programming not a consumer magazine. I have to do the vacuuming in my house (working wife), Dyson cylinder is our vacuum cleaner for the last year and I ain't switching! Before that we had the Samsung Cylinder (the clone of the Dyson) but I broke the catch that holds the cylinder in place (crappy cheap plastic), no seal means no cyclone.
Go to your electrical shop and they don't sell bag cleaners anymore, all you see is the cyclone ones. All that BS from Hoover about how good bags are and how bad cyclone's are, has gone now that they can all make cyclone ones. The bag clogs, people who vacuum know this!
Ask your wife, erm Girlfriend, erm that bloke on MSN Messenger that pretends to be the hot chick, what they think about vacuum cleaners before you buy one.
Consumer Reports gives it pretty poor ratings gives many cheaper more conventional vacs better ratings. Maybe their tests are off, or like an iPod - it simply gives the user a better experience while being technically inferior in some places.
I usually trust CR's ratings in several categories, but I have yet to put together how the vacuum revolutionized the industry (just look at the models offered in Walmart/Target/Kmart vs 10 yrs back - they are all Dyson copies now) with its poor showing.
Maybe it's the vacuum, or maybe it's the magazine that is at fault.
Miles Dyson! Didn't he create the precursor to the T-200 using the chips from the first Schwarzzenegger crushed in that press-thingie?
Yes. I had a DC02 and it ruled my carpeted domain for years, but if I used it for anything heavier than fluff, it keeled over and died. Not the Dyson's fault -you wouldn't expect it to be suitable for clearing plaster and builder's rubble from between floorboards.
The Henry, on the other hand, seems to clear everything.
But I take your point about the brushes.
but the roomba algorithm is actually quite sophisticated.
Clearly it's very sophisticated. You can easily notice this when the Roomba twirls around in a position for an hour and a half in areas less than 9 squared feet.
I'm not saying the roomba is bad... it could just be a LOT smarter.
What I'd like to see is a firmware upgrade for roomba which made it go back to its base station to recharge when its battery gets low and when its fully charged go off and start cleaning again.
:)
If there is an irobot techie reading this, can that be so hard?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
It brought a large smile to my face when I opened the box on my original Dyson (DC08 maybe?) and found along with the instructions for use, a rant about patents and how little they helped when he had to fight a bigger company.
:)
From what I can tell, even though he had patented all of his work, it still cost him an arm and a leg to stop Hoover from just copying and destroying him.
Having said that, I'll never go back to another vacuum cleaner. It's sad, but Dyson has seriously increased the quality of my life. The pet brush and power attachment for the one I have made my house a LOT cleaner than before, and instead of 2 hours (sweep carpets THEN vacuum), I'm now down to 1 hour to do the whole job. And I'm healthier
Amazing, up to ten loads per day, I don't know how you do it. but with 9 kids I can only imagine. but to my point. you would save money on industrial washers, yes they are expensive, and a pain to install. they just don't break down. I was a partner in a laundry, and I spent time researching my competitors. they all had 1 brand for the ultra large loads ( sorry it's been a while ) and it's because it never broke and when it did, it was a 30 minute fix or less. They use less water and electricity ( based on load size ).
also don't forget to have great venting of the dryer, that little bit of wind resistance is what kills them. In my last home, I had they dryers vent into my greenhouse, worked like a charm and the snow would melt in the winter
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Funny you should mention this. I walked into my living room a couple days ago and saw a big trail of brown smear on the floor. I have three cats, and I guess one of them thought they were being funny by letting one drop in the middle of the room.
You'd think these sophisticated consumer robots would be built to avoid situations like this. Don't they have sensors on the bottom? They should be sensing objects too large to vacuum up (like cat toys or cat feces) or liquid spills (water, juice, milk, cat urine) and moving around them. Instead of cleaning my floor, my Roomba vandalized my home. On top of it all, the insides of the thing are all gunked up, and I'M going to be the one cleaning it out and/or throwing parts away.
I've also noticed that it doesn't do well with transitioning from hardwood floors to carpets (doesn't seem to comprehend the idea of different thickness levels on the floor) or bathroom rugs (it tries to eat them). Doesn't the Roomba have spring-loaded offroad tires on it for a REASON? When picked up off the floor, these things pop out maybe an inch and a half!
I have one carpet with a checkered pattern on it, and the edges of the different checkers in the pattern confuse the Roomba, and it refuses to move across some of them, despite there being no difference in thickness or consistency of the fabric. I'd credit this phenomenon to a poor quality depth sensor, which probably, in actuality, looks for variances in light levels. Stupid.
In all, my Roomba Scheduler has been the worst purchase I've ever made.
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
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