769
iSweep
(lemmy.world)
The perfect anti-publicity.
Lol.
Funnily enough my Roomba is the ONE thing I rely on to argue against the "robotic uprising". When people fawn over 1X’s Neo or Tesla humanoid I can happily testify that as relatively long term mobile robot owner... it sucks! In theory it's amazing right, in theory you program it, go out while it clean the place, go back to charge itself, etc. So much free time for you now, right?
No... you need to make way for it. You need to actually setup the place for such a basic task. Think you can just "wing it" and let it work while you sip on a cocktail outside? Sure, come back to find it in an enraged BDSM session, rope all over it as it pulls over a char with cable entangle deep inside.
Honestly it's like AI more broadly : the concept is so simple to understand and the result is something we ALL want... that every single time there is an improvement, no matter how small, we love to speculate that truly this time we are getting "close" to make it work. Truth is, we have no idea of the complexity of the problem.
Related https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dexterity/ who did make Roombas and more.
I often use scanner / printers as an example. Its like a robot with a very specific and easy job - feed the paper through one sheet at a time. They've been around for 40 years, mass produced, they still cant reliably do that one thing.
With a lot of tech, it seems like solving the first 90% of a problem is easy, then the next 5% very hard and expensive, but the last few percent is impossible.
We see this with so many things - printers, roombas, self driving cars.
With a lot of tech, it seems like solving the first 90% of a problem is easy, then the next 5% very hard and expensive, but the last few percent is impossible.
Definitely, that's why I do prototyping. The first 90% is super fun and empowering! It's exhilarating. You start to believe you could do anything. Then... the remaining 90% get harder, and harder, until you're done it and the very last 90% is even harder! /s
It sucked you say?
While it cuts?
My best buy ever was a $ 20 "dumb roomba": It was just a little ball with a battery inside that made random movements, and you could put it in a little "cage".
It did a horrible job, like a 5 year old half-assing it, put hey - $ 20, 0 effort for a little help? Everything was slightly less dusty and hairy, and it pushed most of it into the corners. Saved like 3 minutes per day.
Is ot noisy though? My cheap robot is so fuckyn noisy!
No, it was also quiet. More quiet than the < $ 100 cheap sweep robots with rotating brushes that actually attempt to capture dirt in a compartment inside.
Sad end, though: One day, it decided to just roll away and we never found it again. We thought it'd be under something, but when we moved out a few years ago, it became clear that it decided to find a new home long ago.
iRonic
Got a Roomba for my previous place and it eventually sabotaged itself by scratching the cover of the alignment beam for docking until the unit could no longer align itself with the station. It was an obvious bug in the system, but iRobot wouldn't provide any customer service without extensive repair costs.
That was the end of my adventures into home robotics.
This pic always confused me. The outlet should have had two running throughout the day for redundant cleaning duty just to show off the technology. It shows a lack of confidence in the product.
It's legitimately because they are gimmicks. They will never get your floor as clean as a push broom. They replace the lowest hanging fruit of the cleaning cycle which is already very easy, which doesn't require you to move things out of the way. If you actually want a clean house, the robot vac will do about 10% of the work.
Lol, no.
Without my roborock I'd have cat hair everywhere.
You either don't have pets or you enjoy sweeping every day. Either way, it's obviously not for you, but that's no reason to be disparaging about the tech.
We are thinking of getting a roborock (any recommendations welcome). I don't expect it to do a deep clean but as it is right now, we have a kid, and ergo, there is sand and crumbs everywhere. We live in a three room apartment. There is so much sand and dirt in the corridor oh my god. I vacuum it two times a day. And then there are crumbles everywhere. I just don't want to feel like I am walking on literal egg shells most of the time. My back hurts from vacuuming so often and it is loud and unhandy. Will a roborock handle the superficial crumbs, dust, sand? If yes that is enough for me. I need it as an addition to regular cleaning, not as a substitute.
Yes definitely, my cat loves carrying his litter out of the box and the vacuum sucks it all up, you will just need to be mindful about emptying it regularly. Though the new and expensive ones clean themselves out. Ive never used the mop function on mine, but they're also better on the models with the fancy base station as it changes water for you.
I've had mine for almost 4 years now and it goes once a day. It also survived a bunch of diatomaceous earth that it ended up needing to suck up.
Ive read horror stories about robots like these spreading dog shit all over everything
Oh yeah! It happens, the newer ones have object detection and recognition, I think they're better at not doing that
I'm not sure what exactly regularly means when it comes to emptying, but if it is once or twice for a run of a 70 square meter apartment that is absolutely fine with me. With cleaning, I don't mind once a day. Do you think that would be enough? Also, may I ask what model you are using? I've read so many professional reviews but somehow a stranger's opinion on the internet feels more authentic xD
Edit: I've literally stepped in dirt and sand while sending the reply :(
I'm afraid your edit made me giggle.
The ones with the docking stations will probably last you like a month. For me, my hairy and litter loving cat, in a 42sqm apartment, the small container in the vaccum fills up in a little less than a week.
It helps if your furniture has enough clearance underneath for it to get under it, it means you need less regular vacuuming.
Im using the S6 Pure, it was released just before they started with their docking stations.
As for which one to get, that I can't say, it'd depend on your budget, they're pretty expensive, I paid about €500 for mine a few years ago and the newer model was around $700.
I'd check the features of each, make sure it has the suction power you want, and most importantly, check the noise level, that's one of my only complaints is that they're relatively loud because of the high rpm suction motor.
Definitely get one with automatic emptying, it'll save you a lot of effort too.
Hope that helps.
It helps enormously, this was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for pointing out the noise level, this is actually the other reason I hate vacuuming. I absolutely cannot stand these kinds of sounds and I want to at least be able to let the robot vacuum a room I am not in and not be bothered by it.
No worries, glad I could help.
No the reason I know they are useless is because I had a hairy dog. I'm sorry you don't move things out of the way when you clean, and that there are piles of hair wrapped around every cord and behind every obstacle in your house.
But more to the point, yes. I clean quite frequently, because I enjoy both having pets and a clean home.
You don't have to be so rude.
I'm sorry you leave things on the floor and have a cluttered home. I'm sorry you you have cords all over your floors. I'm sorry you have so many obstacles on your floors, like you don't clean up your kids/pets toys and have to move them only when sweeping. I'm sorry you're so disorganized and lazy.
But more to your point, my floors are always free of obstacles when the roborock runs, because I always pick things up and don't leave them on the floor. Because it takes care of sweeping/vacuuming twice a day, I have the time and energy to focus on other cleaning tasks. As like you, I enjoy both having pets and a clean home, but I additionally enjoy a tidy home.
They're just an asshole, best not engage.
Meh, you started it
You obviously don't have stairs. The moment you introduce any level disparity in your property and suddenly the product is utterly useless.
No it's not, you just need one for every floor. Or just one for the dirtiest floor (with most foot traffic from outside)
I have very little home automation, but a vacuum robot is one of them and they work great. Mopping and vacuuming.
It's tedious work out of our hands and I'd say it's more than 10% because you have to do it all the time.
Probably liability issues. Some customer doesn't see it, steps on it, and face plants into the floor then they get sued.
Put a tall little flag on top of each. Well, draw attention to them somehow, not that hard.
This is what their customers will be doing in 6 months when they have to shut down the app.
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iRony
This image is 10 years old - I bought the 980 (top shelf, third from the left, highest model pictured) as my first bot. Black friday 2016.
For anyone wondering, iR bots have great smarts but suck ass for hardware. I went through a total of 6 iR bots across 3 models, spending up to 1.6k USD for a model (and extended warranties by the store, which I used every time each failed, again, out of warranty). Oh and iR customer support is staffed only by certified assholes - I'm a disabled tech enthusiast and literally every single person I spoke to, both phone and email, was a condescending motherfucker. Every, last, one.
I've tried almost all the brands sold in the US, and I prefer Neato, which was bought by a German company and killed, so uh... that's great. Shark is absolutely literal garbage, the one I bought failed after 28 days, Ecovacs are designed to fail after about 9 months of moderate use every other day (a wheel will start to fail to rotate, causing it to go I'm circles; two models, 3 units, across 2.5y did this). I'm testing a Roborock that has been okay so far, but it's only been in use for two months...
Usually, extended warranties are bullshit. Here, I implore you to get one if you're getting a bot. I'm now on bot make/model 8 (not counting replacements of the same model!), in 9 years. Seriously.
Anyway, 'lol funny picture'.
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She's not cleaning because the floors dirty, she's just trying to pass the time, when I worked at a small shop that got fuck all customers, I cleaned that floor so much, I think I stripped the top layer off.
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this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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