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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

#81

Post by asuffield »

rtb wrote: post #75
Throwaway823 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More than anything else, plastic is light for comparable strength. This is important for something that you're going to be pushing around a lot.

I had a Miele cylinder before this one. The experience of using it was that I dragged it around the flat and needed both hands to manage it. This Dyson model, I point at things, with one hand. It seems to be a combination of low weight, and the ease of pivoting on the ball that means it's rolling everywhere, but the difference is huge.

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

#82

Post by ianstallings »

djrogers wrote: post #78
ianstallings wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Well you could extrapolate.........................................................................

It's all shit anyway, garbage.

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

#83

Post by guiambros »

dominotw wrote: post #69
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…

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

Electric Engineering is certainly a good option. Another is Mechanical Engineering, if you're more interested in the motion, industrial aspects and the construction of robots. And a bit of Computer Science is another option, if you're interested in software aspects, firmware development, machine learning to understand where the robot is, etc.

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

#84

Post by guiambros »

arjie wrote: post #12
sparkman55 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

It worked very well on my laptop. Moving between slides felt very natural. Going back, I see that scrolling 'back' (up) didn't work as well. Interesting. I would never have noticed if your comment didn't make me check. Why did you think it was broken? It said 'scroll to begin' on my screen so I suppose I knew I was expecting something when I scrolled.

Also incredibly similar to Apple's Mac Pro.

[1] http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

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

#85

Post by tonylemesmer »

dominotw wrote: post #69
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…

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

I studied Manufacturing engineering and got a bachelors degree. This is very similar to ordinary Mechanical Engineering. I happened to be working on laundry products leading up to my time on the Dyson Robot. Its just a diverse enough company that they also operate in robotics. I now work for a medical devices company still working on motors.

My personal interests have been influenced by my father and elder brother who are both electronics engineers and I developed a keen interest in electronics and software from as far back as I remember and which I still have to this day. The ability for a mechanical engineer to fully understand the implications of the integration of mechanical systems, electronics and how they are prototyped and manufactured is key.

For instance when developing the wheels we were able to achieve minimal size by integrating the motors directly onto the PCB inside the gearbox and the PCB was an integeral part of the gearbox housing. This came about because all members of that part of the team understood each others domains to an extremely high degree.

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

#86

Post by tonylemesmer »

Shivetya wrote: post #59
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…

can you not get any propulsion from a beater bar?

Not in a sufficiently predictable way. Also, over time, you might not notice but the beater bar wears away to the point that after a couple of years it no longer touches as much as it did when it was new. Worth replacing every year to maintain cleaning performance.

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

#87

Post by dominotw »

tonylemesmer wrote: post #85
dominotw wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I studied Manufacturing engineering and got a bachelors degree. This is very similar to ordinary Mechanical Engineering. I happened to be working on laundry products leading up to my time on the Dyson Robot. Its just a diverse enough company that they also operate in robotics. I now work for a medical devices company still working on motors. My personal interests have been influenced by my father and elder brother wh…

Thank you for your detailed answer.
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