My brother inlaw had a Roomba after testing several of these. He went out one day and came back several hours later to find his dog had defecated on the floor and the robo-vac had smeared the entire downstairs with poo. The vac was never the same after that
I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
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Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#82The algorithm of going straight until you hit a wall, and then turning a (constant) angle has some really cool properties -- some angles/starting positions will eventually let you cover the entire floor, while others will produce beautiful repeating patterns [1].
One key insight for visualizing "hitting a wall and then turning" is that you can pretend that the walls in your room are covered with mirrors that you can walk through. Hitting the wall and bouncing at an angle is equivalent to approaching the mirror at your angle, and then continuing straight through it into the mirrored side. You can verify this in your bathroom mirror by bouncing your finger off it, vs. pretending it goes straight through: in both cases, which side of the bathroom does it bounce toward?
After a finite distance of continuing straight through mirror-walls, do you end up in your original location? I.e. can you see the back of your head in the room of mirrors? If so, then you're on a periodic path, and you're not going to cover the entire floor.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#83> " Dammit, Amazon, it's so hard to quit you. " What? I'm not even in the US, but DDG'ing the "Eufy RoboVac 30" brings me straight to the manufacturer's website, where it's even $40 cheaper. Why give "Lord Bezos" a piece of the cake, when he doesn't even need to have one? Maybe it wasn't so at the time of writing, but I have a weird feeling it's en vogue to claim to be against Amazon, but to then find some half-assed…
>Are these Amazon-financed articles? I mean...duh? Have you been living under a rock? Amazon affiliate has been a great passive income strategy for over a decade.
...which is just a modern way of saying "sales agent", yes?
It's muddy, because AFAIK, anyone can write on Medium, so it's not immediately recognizable as marketing, correct? Which, I presume, is also part of the strategy.
It's a legit strategy, it's just that one needs to keep in mind to second-guess everything the author says, since it could be a paid ad. Something, something along the lines of commercial and independent reviewers. I guess it's a never-ending war that must be fought.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#84I do not trust Eufy brand anymore. We had a Eufy RoboVac and within its warranty period, battery went bust. When attached to its station, it gave some sound errors which is apparently tied to its battery. I contacted support several times, reminded their obligation for warranty period but they did nothing. They asked me to find a "certified technician" to get a report such that this malfunction was present when I mad…
The battery on my RoboVac 11 went bust right out of the warranty period even if it probably had ~15 recharge cycles on it. Bought a replacement (~30E) and the vacuum is happily chugging along doing a good job. This being said I assume Eufy is saving money on that front so I'm not entirely sure my next purchase will be from them.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't like the cleaning I have to do before I let the robot loose -- pick up toys; I could vacuum much faster than the robot does and without heavy lifting of items in my crowded flat. But I usually don't vacuum, so overall I'm satisfied with my roborock.
Same. I can no longer just schedule it to run unattended. First I must “prepare the house to be roomba’d”.
This is something I’ve come to appreciate about my roomba. It trains me to keep my floor tidy. I don’t have kids, though, so it’s doable. Little guy sure loves to eat cables.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#86I've had the Xiaomi one for a couple of years, the one with lidar. It's great. Used to love watching the app as the little guy gets to work and the map starts building realtime. It runs Ubuntu, you can root it. And even get spotify running on it. https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud https://medium.com/@anxodio/how-to-get-spotify-working-on-yo...
Is rooting it worth it? I have one but I haven't bothered with rooting it yet. It would be worth it if I could start-stop it locally, as the app has to go through China and the latency is ~2 seconds, which is terrible.
You don't even need to root it.
Most Xiaomi smart-devices speak a protocol called miIO. There are several libraries/bindings for your favorite languages/tools as well as a nice CLI tool[0].
The only tricky part is getting the device token[1]. But once you have that it's smooth sailing.
[0] https://python-miio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/vacuum.html [1] https://python-miio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/discovery.html#...
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I buy something off another site… - Will I have to register an account? Will I have to take time unsubscribing from the email lists they sign me up for? - Will the checkout form work? Will it be secure? Will it be a single page, or will there be separate pages of shipping info, billing info, payment method, confirmation of sale, and receipt? - Will any of those pages be broken, forcing me to start over? - When w…
You do have the real possibility of receiving a counterfeit item from Amazon though, which you do not have directly from the manufacturer.
Yeah, no kidding. I'd rather deal with all of the other problems (which aren't really problems as I'm not liable anyway), than risking getting a counterfeit product from Amazon. Also, more websites need to implement Apple Pay.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#88I do not trust Eufy brand anymore. We had a Eufy RoboVac and within its warranty period, battery went bust. When attached to its station, it gave some sound errors which is apparently tied to its battery. I contacted support several times, reminded their obligation for warranty period but they did nothing. They asked me to find a "certified technician" to get a report such that this malfunction was present when I mad…
In my opinion, the iRobot support and parts availability are worth the premium. Our 2013 model 650 is still running great. All we’ve had to do is periodically replace worn out brushes and spinners and at some point we replaced the main battery. This is all easily done with a screwdriver.
Totally agree. I just checked my order history: I bought my current Roomba 650 in May 2014, so it's been running 4-5 days a week for almost 6 years straight with various simple part replacements. Really great little product, and excellent customer support and user community.
At one point the tread wore out on the wheels, so it was struggling to get over the threshold into different rooms. Rather than buy a whole new set of wheels, I found a blog saying that Kirby 301291 vacuum cleaner belts just happen to perfectly fit on roomba wheels and work as replacement treads. Now it's been happily rolling around on vacuum belts for the past year or more.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#89I do not trust Eufy brand anymore. We had a Eufy RoboVac and within its warranty period, battery went bust. When attached to its station, it gave some sound errors which is apparently tied to its battery. I contacted support several times, reminded their obligation for warranty period but they did nothing. They asked me to find a "certified technician" to get a report such that this malfunction was present when I mad…
I find this a little surprising because, Anker, Eufy's parent company, has a good reputation from my perspective.
Re: I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)
#90I bought a robotic vacuum more out of curiosity and to see if I should buy one as a gift for my parents. Just one of the cheapest models that still had good reviews. It turned out that all deficiencies of such a vacuum are offset by its basic function: it keeps the apartment clean each day, every day. Dirty corners? Weak suction? Small container? Somewhat noisy? Not too smart? Gets stuck sometimes? I need to clean ha…
I don't like the cleaning I have to do before I let the robot loose -- pick up toys; I could vacuum much faster than the robot does and without heavy lifting of items in my crowded flat. But I usually don't vacuum, so overall I'm satisfied with my roborock.
I love this feature! After a lifetime of throwing my socks on the floor, Roomba finally trained me to put them in the laundry hamper. I've learned to keep my floors tidy all the time, and my life is much better for it.