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iRobot, Google Team Up To Understand Your Smart Home (zdnet.com)
iRobot and Google are looking for ways to integrate the Roomba-maker's home maps with Google Assistant to extend instructions to other gadgets. "The collaboration centers on iRobot's Roomba i7+ vacuum models' ability to map home floor plans and remember room names," notes TechCrunch. From the report: As it is, Google Home users or anyone with Google Assistant can give a voice command like, "Hey Google, clean the kitchen," and a Roomba carries out the task. The integration supports the task across multiple rooms that have been assigned a name, such as the bedroom, living room, and other named areas. According to iRobot, the home-mapping data could also be used to make it easier to set up new smart home gadgets and create new ways to automate the home.
In a statement to The Verge, Google said iRobot's maps could help locate wifi-connected lights and automatically assign names and locations to them within the house. Google stressed that Assistant only learns the names people have given to areas in the home so it can then instruct Roomba i7+ to go to that area. Google doesn't receive information about the layout of the home. Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot, told the publication that the partnership could help users in future tell Assistant to control other smart home gadgets using the same naming and location information used by the Roomba.
In a statement to The Verge, Google said iRobot's maps could help locate wifi-connected lights and automatically assign names and locations to them within the house. Google stressed that Assistant only learns the names people have given to areas in the home so it can then instruct Roomba i7+ to go to that area. Google doesn't receive information about the layout of the home. Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot, told the publication that the partnership could help users in future tell Assistant to control other smart home gadgets using the same naming and location information used by the Roomba.
"Hey Google, clean the kitchen," and a Roomba carries out the task.
Let me know when it gets good at things like cleaning up the glass jar of honey that I just dropped, then I'll consider spending money on this nonsense.
So people want the governments' (note plural) watchdog to know where everything and everyone is in their homes?
Team up to understand your dumb home.
My old pre-wifi Roomba cleans the kitchen floor daily thanks to a simple timer. Why would I want to have to verbally command it from another location daily?
*vomit*
Why do you want Google to know your homes' floorplan and where all the furniture is?
Well, that plan is canceled.
Can't trust anyone with access to any part of your life.
I have my entire house automated, down to controlling air flow to individual rooms. I bought both the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Google Home work at first and it's voice recognition is much better than the Amazon Echo. Google being Google decided to start limiting functionality, example local Google Home,Harmony Emulator, which makes home control MUCH MUCH faster , ie local network,Google Home, Cloud-,local network,home controller than going local network,Google Home,Google Cloud (Voice Recognition) ,Home Controller Cloud,Local network,Home Controller. Yes it does make a difference especially when you are giving multiple commands in a row. Adding 2-5 seconds between commands, vs 1 second pause is just one reason the Google Home product is now just in the closet.
Google allowed local harmony access at first, allowing adding all of them with one button click.If you have 80+ devices or even 20+ devices , manually adding each one and giving it name is major PITA. Google then removed adding new local harmony devices, only allowing grandfathered devices, then they just removed all local access to push their own api called google actions.
Actionis looks pretty good but Google will cancel it in a few years leaving you just with your G Home "It looks like those lights have not been set up yet, just go to the Google Home app", which will involve a new home controller or google home version X.Y.Z or most likely both. Yep they remove the Home part and leave you with a voice activated google search with no screen.
Time to sell the Roomba. Back to the good ole vacuum.
It's amazing the number of things I used to use that I gave up on because Google bought the company that made it to data-rape the user base. The richer Google gets, the more ubiquitous it gets, and the harder it becomes to avoid interacting with this leech of a company...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Where's the safe room?
I have my entire house automated
Why? Serious question.
This is a way for Google to map and to get details about your home. Of course its not presented to the public like that. I wonder how much Roomba is getting paid for this data about your home.
well, that would be a first.
so here's a proper translation:
it "doesn't count" when irobot gets the data first, then google gets it from them instead.
Iâ(TM)m happy with âoeKylieâ as she is. Donâ(TM)t step over the line.
So, I don't have a Smart Home. Is that a Feature Home?
... your smart home. It has everything to do with mapping your home and knowing when you are out so that Google can sell your personal info to the highest bidder.
iRobot has been building floor plans for years (it was covered on /. when they announced it). That Google is buying access to it is... well, to be expected. iRobot is publicly traded. That means that someone is going to eventually sell/lease the data to the big data companies.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
not add google, yeah! That's it!!!!
- Not all Roomba are even Wifi enabled to begin with.
Even Wifi enabled Roomba, work without wifi.
Even if you activate the Wifi access, you can also use only for firmware update and otherwise only talk to your smartphone directly over the local network (or optionnally to your home server running on some raspberry pi).
( ^at that point you already have 99% of features people want, including local tiled maps on navigation-cam featuring models like the 9x0 serie)
This thing aditionnally requires you to connect it to iRobot's cloud and link to your Google account.
( ^ this is required for the creepy features like using the App over internet (for 890 and more recent), storage of maps of past runs (for 9xx and more recent), and permanent map of the floor and voice commands (for i7/i9) )
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The first version of the mapping feature of the 900 series was a bit buggy and got lost.
It cleans okay (still able to reach almost everywhere using the random walk of classic roombas) but has no fucking clue where the home base is and how to reach it back (it just keeps running around aimlessly until battery runs out, whereas classic roomba run aimlessly around until within reach of base station and then IR to engage the "tractor beam" feature).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The Wifi and app are only a hard requirement for:
- firmware update (it's not done with a serial dongle anymore) to weed out bugs (the first version of 900 had navigation problems)
- setting time and timers (there are buttons on the device utself anymore. Apparently "blinking twelve" is still a problem with people too stupid to press buttons).
Separate cloud connection is required for the creepier features
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
With new RoachScan and AntScan technologys.
It sits in the corner of your kitchen waiting for its prey to appear. With one red beady Eye like the HAL 9000.
Burgler: Hey, google, let me know when they leave."
Idiot16yrold down the block: Hey, google, have irobot dump its contents into the sink."
Asian company: hey, google and robot, let me know when they're in their bedroom.
Not, IoT: "the Internet of Gratuitously Connected Insecure Things" - Carla Schroder
I'm assuming you can program it through a Wifi end-to-end kind of thing, not requiring a internet connection.
Yup.
At my brothers' first setup was done with a direct wifi peer-to-peer connection, then over the local network for subsequent timer settings.
Connection to iRobot's cloud is only used for keeping an archive of maps of finished jobs, all this weird "make a map of wifi coverage" useless features, permanent floor maps for TFA's "go clean the kitchen" jobs, etc.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]