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Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?

freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?

#21

Post by jrockway »

henning wrote: post #4

Because people would steal them the way they steal towels and other things in hotel rooms? It'd be a crackhead's paradise -- find the nearest hotel, break two room windows in, and score a cool $600 worth of electronics in a few minutes. Score!

It'd be a crackhead's paradise -- find the nearest hotel, break two room windows in, and score a cool $600 worth of electronics in a few minutes. Score!

I think the hotels that would use this first would not be the motel in the drug district, but rather a high-rise in some city. If you can break into a 10th story window, I guess you can have the Roomba.

Currently, theft of this variety doesn't appear to be a real problem; there is tons of expensive stuff in hotel rooms right now. Video game systems, flat-screen TVs, mattresses, etc. The Roomba would be easier to steal, but I doubt it would become a common occurrence.

Besides, in my imagined version of how this would work, the door to the room would be open while the Roomba is doing its thing, and the maid would probably hear the window breaking. (There wouldn't be a Roomba in each room, the maid would just carry some when doing their cleaning, set them loose in a few rooms, wait for them to finish, repeat.)

Anyway, this just won't happen. I should have just written that initially and saved the bits used to represent this reply ;)

Re: Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?

#22

Post by jrockway »

sown wrote: post #17
richcollins wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Most people use Roombas for entertainment purposes. It definitely takes more time to look after them than it would to do a better job with a vacuum. I bought one for my wife. I kind of think of it as a pet.

I dunno about the rest of you but mine actually works as advertised. I leave it on before I go to work and it cleans the whole (carpeted) house by the time I get home. When you say look after them, what do you mean? I clean the brushes out about once a month and that takes a short while. The bin seems to need emptying about as often.

Mine needs more care than that, but basically I agree with you. I couldn't be happier with my Roomba. Just because a loud-but-irrelevant blogger says something doesn't mean it's true or that you have to agree. :)

Re: Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?

#23

Post by HansF »

ivankirigin wrote: post #5
henning wrote: post #4

Because people would steal them the way they steal towels and other things in hotel rooms? It'd be a crackhead's paradise -- find the nearest hotel, break two room windows in, and score a cool $600 worth of electronics in a few minutes. Score!

Why don't they do that now for the TVs or the fine art?

They are bolted down.

Re: Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?

#24

Post by stcredzero »

mattmaroon wrote: post #9
sown wrote: post #7

Vacuuming a hotel is a fundamentally different engineering problem than vacuuming a house in a similar way that a dish washer for a restaurant is different than for a home. The washer from where I worked was a large industrial box that worked hard and fast. A home unit would have to conserve energy and water where as the industrial unit doesn't necessarily. Customers need clean dishes NOW more than the business needs…

It wouldn't have to be as fast as a human because it doesn't need to be watched and a maid could carry multiple of them. (In fact given their battery life, she'd have to.) She could clean room 1, release roomba 1 in it after she was done, move on to clean room 2 while roomba 1 worked, release roomba 2 after the end, etc. There might be a little lag at the end of the shift though, depending on the amount of time the R…

Forget about the maids having to carry them at all. Build a kind of auto-recharge/clean/de-hair/emptying station into the base of the bed and have one each room. Also build an electronic "Do Not Disturb/Please Clean the Room" sign into the door which notifies the Roomba when it might be okay to activate. The Roomba would be programmed to start the cycle one hour after the guests leave in the morning.

Alternatively, have a cart-sized Mothership robot with the above facilities. It could go down the hall and dispatch Roombas, which would enter through a "Robot-door" disguised as a kickplate and equipped with a wireless lock. The Mothership could implement battery-swap to maximize the duty cycle of the Roombas.

Re: Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?

#26

Post by richcollins »

sown wrote: post #17
richcollins wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Most people use Roombas for entertainment purposes. It definitely takes more time to look after them than it would to do a better job with a vacuum. I bought one for my wife. I kind of think of it as a pet.

I dunno about the rest of you but mine actually works as advertised. I leave it on before I go to work and it cleans the whole (carpeted) house by the time I get home. When you say look after them, what do you mean? I clean the brushes out about once a month and that takes a short while. The bin seems to need emptying about as often.

I think the dog hair is its undoing.
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