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Roomba Celebrates 10 Years of Cleaning Up After You
SkinnyGuy writes "Roomba, the world’s first multi-million unit-selling home-helper robot, turns 10 today. iRobot has cooked up a self-congratulatory infographic filled with a collection of interesting and occasionally bizarre facts to mark the occasion. Did you know that dogs, cats and babies have ridden iRobot's iconic home cleaning robot since it was introduced exactly a decade ago?"
I bought a Roomba years ago to take care of some light-colored carpeting in the living room. I'm not buying another until they come with an under-the-couch dog poop sensor, standard.
Poodle skidmarks, man. Poodle skidmarks.
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It didn't immediately decrease the time spent on vacuuming, though — I'd waste the time previously spent pushing a vacuum around just watching it do its thing. Now, at least, I can just let it run, but I do get a feeling of "wow, that's rather cool" each time I run it...
And designed to be user-repaired, or at least parts replaced, which is always a bonus.
The batteries are cheaper than a maid, and more thorough for those things it does.
A pain to keep running (hair wraps on spinning bits), but still less work than sweeping it yourself - transforms a long boring daily task into a much shorter one with intermittent tech skills required: Google search "WTF does two beeps mean on a Roomba", ah: get screwdriver, remove edge sweeper, cut away hair wrapped on hex shaft, replace, good to go for another 50 uses.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-roomba-blender-makes-smoothie-out-of-everythin,29539/
http://www.theonion.com/articles/roomba-violates-all-three-laws-of-roombotics,2184/
http://www.theonion.com/articles/roomba-maker-unveils-military-robot,15331/
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I grew up watching those little robots zipping around on the bridge of an Imperial star ship, so when I first powered up the thing I was a giddy. I felt like I was one step closer to the idealized future envisioned in my childhood.
Unfortunately, we're a lot closer to that Imperial future in a lot of ways we'd rather not be.
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"I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!"
Perhaps there really is some difference in the quality of vacuum cleaning from a Kirby but I suspect most people will comfort themselves with buying which costs 1/5th the price which is almost as good and weighs half as much. And buying it without some a salesman refusing to leave their house wearing them down for hours until they buy the thing.
Several years ago, we demoed a Dyson unit. They look cool and have good marketing, but we were pretty disappointed by its actual performance. It cost more and performed worse than the Hoover vacuum we wound up getting instead. Right now we have a Sebo, and it works great.
As for the Roomba's performance, isn't there an argument that you can have it go out and vacuum every day? If you have it set to do that, then your carpets shouldn't get dirty enough that the lower performance is an issue. It also means that your carpets stay clean the whole week, rather than having one day where they look real nice and six days getting progressively worse (or am I the only one who vacuums only once a week?).
(Dear lord, I can't believe I'm talking about vacuuming right now.)
If you can't convince them, convict them.
By the time the salesman left it wasn't us that was worn out, it was him. He must have been there 5 hours and we paid a fraction of the original price.
The Kirby is a really good product, but I do agree the way they are sold is not very good.
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