Those of you with kids and pets might wonder how they react to Roomba. In fact, one reader (Rogers George) sent in this:
(Click to enlarge)
I'm sure there's a huge range of reactions, but here's a brief sample:
Roomba and...
...Child (46 sec clip): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfsr52ocYlQ
...Cat (46 sec): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-jv8g1YVI
...Dog (45 secs): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRFd2QYiEg8
Roomba also gets along very, very well with other appliances. Maybe too well! If you have young appliances, you might want to send them out of the room. (12 secs):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yuWCFpQWYQ
Because Roomba is perhaps the cheapest "real" robot available, people interested in robotics have gravitated to it as a platform for experimentation. Herewith, some Roomba hacks, some of them very funny:
Roomba Cylon:
See this (21 secs):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRRLJ-v0KwM
Roomba with laser-guided airsoft (soft pellet) gun:
video of above(1:57):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4LBQqQGipg
Roombutla:
Roomba Pacman:
Video of above (1:37; the action stats at 44 secs):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wsP_nmk_iw
Hamster-guided Roomba (really!) 36 secs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaOGcrtUrxU
The all-singing, all dancing Roomba:
http://hacknmod.com/hack/roombamidi-make-your-roomba-dance-sing/
video (1:59):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtR4fZLmXJA
Mow your lawn, Roomba-style:
http://hacknmod.com/hack/howt-to-hack-a-roomba-into-robot-lawn-mower/
There's even a book and web site:
http://hackingroomba.com/
It was mostly hard-core geeks in the above projects, but there are gentler Roomba mods, too, including Roomba cozies and costumes:
Here's a hand-made Roomba costume:
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/03/horny_toad_roomba_cozy.html
There are many commercial Roomba cozies:
http://www.myroombud.com/
And of course, there's also some Roomba-inspired utter silliness:
Roomba Wars! (3:29, but skip forward to 1:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkXtliMtqhs
Roomba deathmatch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMaRyDYTUQA
Roomba jousting:
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/09/roomba-lego-jou.html
Roomba Frogger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ZnClqyVjE
I, Roomba:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbyLzfz9NoY
OK, I'll stop now. 8-)
Several of you had questions.
One was what do I do about cleaning different levels in my house, and what about stairs. Roomba has a handle and it weighs 5-6 pounds (+/- 2.5 kilos). I just carry it to where I want to clean next. To clean my office, for example, I'll carry Roomba upstairs at the start of the day or during a coffee run or whenever I remember to. When I'm done for the day in the office, I hit the Clean button, close the door, and depart. Roomba does its thing while I'm elsewhere, and the next morning I return to a freshly-vacuumed office. I'll carry Roomba downstairs on one of my regular up/down trips, empty the debris bin, and drop Roomba on the charging stand.
For stairs, I do what I did with the upright: I use a small hand vac. Neither the upright nor the Roomba are much use on stairs. The Roomba can clean landings between flights of stairs, though, if you want it too.
How well does it clean? Very well. Better than I thought it would, in fact, given its light weight. The "multiple passes from different directions" programming does a surprisingly thorough job. No one pass picks up as much as you might get with one pass of a large vacuum, but who's going to vacuum each area of floor 4 times from different directions? (Not I!)
Another indicator of its thoroughness is that the Roomba can lift the knap of even a fairly dense berber rug. You know that "freshly vacuumed" look when a good vacuuming erases footprints and visible traffic paths in a rug? Roomba does that on my rugs, which means it's mechanically interacting with the rug fibers, not just passing over their tops.
Plus, the little beastie get under things that I wouldn't. Add in its infinite, mindless patience, and I have to admit it's a better vacuumer than I.
iRobot suggests using Roomba a lot, even every day. They talk about "routine" cleaning rather than major "let's tackle this mess" cleaning. I don't run Roomba every day--- it's just me here, and I'm not *that* big a slob. Um, most of the time.
But I understand what iRobot is trying to do: to get you to stop thinking of vacuuming as a once a week (or whatever) task. If you have a robot, let it work before the messes on the floor reach the Grand Mal, Toxic Alert, Break Out The Moon Suits stage. I can imagine that families with pets and young kids would love a Roomba. (And yes, iRobot even has a floor *washing* robot called Scooba.)
Once a day may be overkill. But there's also no need to leave vacuuming as a once-a-week-or-so task, because it's time consuming. Think about it this way: Some 500 years ago, a man was considered fastidious if he bathed once each season. That's because bathing was a major hassle--- you needed to borrow or rent a tub if you didn't have one large enough, carry lots of water (it's heavy!), get lots of firewood (also heavy, plus there's the cutting, splitting, drying of the wood, etc), spend hours getting the water to temperature, and then scrub yourself inadequately clean with bad soap that you bought or made. Meanwhile, someone else was washing and drying your clothes so you could put them back on when you were as clean as you were going to get. Bathing was a big, costly (in time and/or money) PITA that you had to plan for.
Today, with automatic ("robotic," in a sense) water heaters and washing machines, you take a shower and wash your clothes whenever you need or want. You don't have to think much about it. The machines are always ready. You don't have to plan ahead; it's just not that big a deal.
That's the kind of shift in thinking iRobot wants to make. Saturday morning doesn't have to be "Aw, sh*t, I have to vacuum" anymore. With a robot vacuum, you don't have to think about it. The machine is always ready. Run it mid-week while you're at work. Do a floor a day. Whatever. You're pretty much just pushing a button, so do it whenever you want or need to. There's almost zero hassle to it.
Roomba is currently too expensive for mass-market acceptance, but so were the first cars, TVs, computers, etc etc etc. And even now, you can get a basic Roomba (Model 400) for $129 at full retail. That's not too bad. iRobot and others also sometimes sell refurbished Roombas for about half list price. (examples: http://www.google.com/search?q=refurbished+roomba )
And Roomba knockoffs are coming: http://tinyurl.com/d3csge. There are others, too, including some crappy late-night infomerical things that look like a Roomba but have no on-board computer. They're basically battery-powered toy bumper cars with brushes. Caveat emptor.
So, even if you're now saying "I'll never get one of those things," remember that lots of people said that about the early computers, too. (And look where *that* got us. :) )
I'm happy with my Roomba and glad I got it.
Maybe I should name it, but what? Dusty? Sucka? Unspot?
Ideas?
Fred,
ReplyDeleteHere is a really good Roomba advert:
http://tinyurl.com/chyghf