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

engadget.com

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

#71

Post by makmanalp »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #67
tonylemesmer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, basic…

Look into methods like extended kalman filters to mitigate some of this. It's a smart way to blend multiple sources of information and checking amount of error in real time to weight / bias one source of information over the other.

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

#72

Post by ZenoArrow »

joncrocks wrote: post #68
ZenoArrow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

That's not what I've found. I wonder what I'm doing differently. Do you shake your hands before putting them in/under a dryer?

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

#73

Post by kisielk »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #36
poglet wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This things are so popular right now in Japan. After going to the shops and seeing a demo of them, I'm also wondering how they work in a Japanese style apartment (most of which are tiny). My friend got one (forgot the brand) because she didn't have time to clean.

TBH vacuuming the floor is just a small part of cleaning - hiring a cleaner is probably a better solution then. Cheaper in the short run, too.

Yeah, but it's one I found I often neglected in the past. I ended up buying a Roomba since it was on sale and it's worked out quite well. It's not perfect at vacuuming but on average the floor is a lot cleaner when I can run the Roomba every couple of days while I go out for lunch versus me getting around to vacuuming every few weeks.

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

#74

Post by gfodor »

Throwaway823 wrote: post #49
buro9 wrote: 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…

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…

So you never actually used the vacuum, but you feel entitled to express on opinion on the quality of the product. Dyson is a design company. Design as in "how it works" not "how it looks." Perhaps the plastic you are complaining about here serves a purpose: keeps the vacuum light and allows the user to bump into things without damaging their furniture or the vacuum.

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

#75

Post by rtb »

Throwaway823 wrote: post #66
gbhn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People are listening, but they disagree with you. The build quality is good as well as the performance. It is made of plastic because that is tough and soft (see previous comments about banging into things). You seem to be saying it should be made of metal and glass because plastic is "cheap", but that would be a worse vacuum.

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

#76

Post by ZenoArrow »

buro9 wrote: post #63
ZenoArrow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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'v…

I didn't realise there were different models, I only have experience of the DB. In my experience the DB works better than the World Dryer or any other traditional hand dryer. I find it easier and more effectice to dip my hands in and out of the DB than rub them under a World Dryer, plus it's more efficient from an energy efficiency point of view. Here's a study by the University of Westminster that backs up the improved drying speed claim (check out table 2)... http://www.europeantissue.com/pdfs/090402-2008%20WUS%20Westm...

As for the V, it's hardly Dyson's fault if they are installed in an inappropriate way.

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

#77

Post by sliverstorm »

sparkman55 wrote: post #9
lingben wrote: post #5

if you're interested in the product you'll get about 1000 times more information via their website than this article https://www.dyson360eye.com/

Yikes, what did they do to the page's "scroll" function? Do people actually find that usable? It definitely made me think the page was broken at first... The slideshow seems like a 'play' (right-arrow) much more than a 'scroll' (down-arrow). Is this a metaphor for Dyson vacuums in general? (Technically-clever, shiny, but not necessarily the most effective)

Just don't think of it as "scroll" if you have a mouse. Click the little bubbles on the right to navigate.

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

#78

Post by djrogers »

ianstallings wrote: post #58
pw wrote: post #3

This was a disappointingly light read. I was hoping for lots of fascinating technical details and a heartening, Apple-esque story of biding one's time with a product (along with an analysis of what technical advancements make now the right time for the Dyson robot vacuum). And there was exactly one paragraph about why it's launching in Japan first.

I actually have a hosts rule for techcrunch articles that helps me avoid this frustration: /etc/hosts: 0.0.0.0 techcrunch.com

except the linked article is on engadget...

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

#79

Post by blacksmith_tb »

Throwaway823 wrote: post #66
gbhn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I suspect also that fewer people have used a Miele (or seen advertising for one) than a Dyson. They are not fancy, but are very, very well made and designed.

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

#80

Post by Bluestrike2 »

Throwaway823 wrote: post #49
buro9 wrote: 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…

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's a vacuum. They suck up dirt. Is it really that much of a stretch to imagine that a vacuum's bin would therefore have dirt in it? The entire point of a clear bin is so that you can see how much dirt is in it and whether it needs to be emptied.

The marketing photos show a new, unused vacuum. Duh. The alternative would be as odd as a Johnson & Johnson selling bandages by using a photo of a gory, infected, pus-filled wound on the outside of the box. While that may very well be a valid example of its use, I don't really see many people wanting to buy anything marketed in such a manner.

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