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Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

engadget.com

61–70 of 87 posts

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#61
post #14

I find these round robots completely useless in Japan, because in most apartments, they are unable to move around because there's just too much stuff at ground level. There's a reason why normal vacuum cleaner ends are not shaped like landmine detectors, and unless you seriously address that point in your design, these robots will remain completely unadapted to most households.

Most people in Japan do not live in an apartment, but rather in a single family home.

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that you are placing a very high value on how shiny things are and their presentation. In that case Dyson is probably not for you; they are fundamentally an industrial engineering organisation. I own that model of vacuum you have photographed, and it's just.... good. Lightweight, easy to push around tight corners, and sucks up everything in my flat in under 10 minutes without ever having to fight it. It ma…

I don't care about a status symbol. I'm not in the vacuum market right now and already own a miele. Based on all the hype Dyson tries to generate, their product renders, commercials, sales lingo, etc, I expected this to be the iPhone of vacuums, where it was priced high, because it functions well, and has a great build quality. Instead, it just looked overpriced, and the quality appeared no better than the vacuums a…

I think the point asuffield is making is that you're judging "quality" not based on how it performs, but on how it looks.

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#63
post #33

Is the solution to a small robot vacuum really to increase the power of the motor above the competition? On hard wood flooring I've never found rotary brushes to be better than side sweeps (what most of the competition uses). And on carpet where rotary brushes do perform better, I can't help but think that instead of upping the suction power you could approach the problem from a different perspective... such as using…

"Their hand dryers do a worse job than the classic World Dryer and look uglier over time and seem to be less performant over time (smaller clogged filters perhaps!?)." Really? That's the exact opposite experience than I've had, the Airblade dries my hands faster and more thoroughly than any traditional hand dryer.

Which one?

The Airblade db works, but not as efficiently as rubbing hands together under a World Dryer (not one of the cheaper imitators of them).

The Airblade V works extremely well, but tends to suffer from being put where old driers were, which is too damn high to be used comfortably... in motorway services where these and old traditional ones are offered you see people choose the older ones.

The tap based one I've not seen in the world.

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dyson definitely does a great job at marketing, and giving their products a premium price and expectations. I was at the store one day, and saw vacuum cleaners. Now, I have no interest in a vacuum at the moment, but they had a Dyson Ball, and I've seen countless videos of it, and had to take a look to see this high-end vacuum. I was disappointed from the first second, it just looked like a bunch of cheap plastic part…

It appears that you are placing a very high value on how shiny things are and their presentation. In that case Dyson is probably not for you; they are fundamentally an industrial engineering organisation. I own that model of vacuum you have photographed, and it's just.... good. Lightweight, easy to push around tight corners, and sucks up everything in my flat in under 10 minutes without ever having to fight it. It ma…

Kirbys clean carpet & mattresses extremely well... that's the appeal. I have a really hard time believing anybody sees a Kirby as a status symbol, as "cool", as anything other than highly utilitarian. I think this is why Dyson was so successful disrupting Kirby: they sold these based on function, not looks, and Dyson came in and competed on functionality AND price.

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that you are placing a very high value on how shiny things are and their presentation. In that case Dyson is probably not for you; they are fundamentally an industrial engineering organisation. I own that model of vacuum you have photographed, and it's just.... good. Lightweight, easy to push around tight corners, and sucks up everything in my flat in under 10 minutes without ever having to fight it. It ma…

I don't care about a status symbol. I'm not in the vacuum market right now and already own a miele. Based on all the hype Dyson tries to generate, their product renders, commercials, sales lingo, etc, I expected this to be the iPhone of vacuums, where it was priced high, because it functions well, and has a great build quality. Instead, it just looked overpriced, and the quality appeared no better than the vacuums a…

I think it might be instructive here to think about how notions of what kind of "build quality" and materials are best might tend to differ between:

a) a jewel-like, highly refined computer that you hold in your hand and touch gently to use

b) an industrial cleaning device designed to be banged into objects on a regular basis, scrub surfaces aggressively, and suck up dusty dirty things, without damaging what you bang it into

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#66
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about a status symbol. I'm not in the vacuum market right now and already own a miele. Based on all the hype Dyson tries to generate, their product renders, commercials, sales lingo, etc, I expected this to be the iPhone of vacuums, where it was priced high, because it functions well, and has a great build quality. Instead, it just looked overpriced, and the quality appeared no better than the vacuums a…

Agree with the GP -- I own this vacuum and it works great. If you're more in the market for a chrome-and-platinum vacuum and don't care as much about the performance, you're probably headed the right direction with what you have. What may be worth understanding, though, is that there are people who are equally willing to pay money for good vacuums, but whose judgment of "good vacuum" runs much more to "suction power…

If you're more in the market for a chrome-and-platinum vacuum and don't care as much about the performance

Is no one listening here? I said I care about performance, and build quality. Why can't I ask for both? Perhaps the Dyson performs well. I said I don't have experience with it, but the quality looks cheap. When a product advertises itself as being premium and top of the line, and asks for a high price, I expect both of the above.

Likewise, when I spend money on a phone or laptop, I expect it to feel solid. Don't sell me a $1,500 laptop that's built like a $300 Dell Inspiron.

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#67
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, for robotic vacuums _low_ weight is also a problem: the better your suction, the worse your ability to drive! The tank-tread wheels on Dyson's model are meant to help mitigate against this, but I gather from (now ex-) insiders that this is still a buggy sticking point (ha!) that needs to be solved before release.

ex-dyson robotic engineer here. Correct - low weight means you have less force to apply to the wheels and hence achieve grip. The design of the aperture where the air goes into the vaccum (the soleplate) has to be optimised between flicking the carpet fibres in the right fashion to achieve good dirt pickup and not impeding sliding across the carpet too much. The design of the tyres is critical. If there is any slip i…

At the Homebrew Robotics Club we had a number of sessions on 'localization', which was as you might expect figuring out where you were in a room. Carpet was a real pain. One of my robots (wheeled) had excellent sensors and no wheel slip but I discovered that the 'weave' of the carpet would bias the whole robot to travel slightly sideways to the direction of travel, it was so annoying. I put 'pingers' in my lab, basically synchronized sources of sound and tried to do triangulation based on arrival time with limited success, the camera should be able to do much better than that. Especially if there are already 2 or three distinctive features (lights, doorways etc).

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#68
post #33

Is the solution to a small robot vacuum really to increase the power of the motor above the competition? On hard wood flooring I've never found rotary brushes to be better than side sweeps (what most of the competition uses). And on carpet where rotary brushes do perform better, I can't help but think that instead of upping the suction power you could approach the problem from a different perspective... such as using…

"Their hand dryers do a worse job than the classic World Dryer and look uglier over time and seem to be less performant over time (smaller clogged filters perhaps!?)." Really? That's the exact opposite experience than I've had, the Airblade dries my hands faster and more thoroughly than any traditional hand dryer.

Apart from the tips of your fingers, which always come out wet...

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#69
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, for robotic vacuums _low_ weight is also a problem: the better your suction, the worse your ability to drive! The tank-tread wheels on Dyson's model are meant to help mitigate against this, but I gather from (now ex-) insiders that this is still a buggy sticking point (ha!) that needs to be solved before release.

ex-dyson robotic engineer here. Correct - low weight means you have less force to apply to the wheels and hence achieve grip. The design of the aperture where the air goes into the vaccum (the soleplate) has to be optimised between flicking the carpet fibres in the right fashion to achieve good dirt pickup and not impeding sliding across the carpet too much. The design of the tyres is critical. If there is any slip i…

Hello. Sorry about the offtopic question. How does one become a robotic engineer. What was you career path/education?

Re: Why Dyson's robot vacuum took 16 years, and why it's headed to Japan first

#70
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, for robotic vacuums _low_ weight is also a problem: the better your suction, the worse your ability to drive! The tank-tread wheels on Dyson's model are meant to help mitigate against this, but I gather from (now ex-) insiders that this is still a buggy sticking point (ha!) that needs to be solved before release.

Wouldn't high suction give you better traction (ie. by adding an additional downward force to the force of gravity) and hence mitigate any disadvantage of low weight ? Also with sufficiently well-controlled motors you should be able to optimize suction and drive, say to minimize power consumption or maximize speed/vacuum power.

The tank treads are sprung, so I think it actually just sucks the sole plate onto the ground rather than the tracks.
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