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iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

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Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#31
post #6

Ah, they mean 20 percent of the vacuums sold this year. Since a vacuum is not something that gets replaced each year (or every 5 years even?), it will take quite a while for robots to reach 20 percent of all existing vacuums, if ever. Anecdotally the only person I know who owns a roomba used to work for iRobot.

If we assume a fixed lifetime of n years for vacuums, it will take at most n years to get to 20%. If we assumed a half-life of n years, then robot vacuums will only ever approach 20% asymptotically and won't ever reach it. (We could get over 20% if robot vacuums have a longer lifespan than regular vacuums. I'm tempted to write a simulation over different failure curves but I really have better things to do.)

> If we assumed a half-life of n years, then robot vacuums will only ever approach 20% asymptotically and won't ever reach it.

You shouldn't assume that they will be 20% of sales for every future year.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#33

won't use one until someone includes a deep-learning image recognition module to stop it spreading a track of cat shit all over the room

I read a truly disturbing story last month involving a roomba, a puppy, diarrhea and a light beige carpet. Imagine 8 hours of unattended shit smearing.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#34

Question: how good are Roombas at actually cleaning? With an actual vacuum, I can turn it high or low, or press it harder or easier, or stick it at weird angles to make it clean. How good are Roombas in comparison?

It is actually very good, by virtue of running every day (unless you change its schedule to something else). So even though its suction doesn't compare well to a real big canister/bag vacuum, it makes up for that in sheer level of activity.

It's not perfect. I have a single-floor apartment with no door thresholds, yet it keeps getting stuck. I keep cables and so on neatly organized and hidden, but sometimes I've left a temporary charger cord or something on the floor; this kills the Roomba. You also have to careful with plants -- it ate a whole branch of a plant once that was hanging low near the floor. It has issues with rugs, especially with black areas, but also just getting onto the rug. It also loves to close the door on a room so that it can't get out; I had to buy a couple of door wedges to prevent that, but I don't always remember to use them. Pretty much 50% of the time I come home to find the Roomba dead in a corner.

Its dust compartment is quite small and must be emptied at least every 2-3 days. You also have to take out the little spindle things and remove hair which collects around the axles. Fortunately, the Roomba is really modular in design; you can take it apart completely, and there are replacement parts for absolutely everything. It is a rare product where the designers seem to have rejected the trend of planned obsolescence; I haven't really owned it long enough to be qualified to judge, or taken it apart, but everything I have seen indicates that it was carefully engineered to be repairable and last a long time. (It's probably hackable, too.)

Despite its weaknessss, I am quite happy with it. It keeps my apartment clean and removes the mental burden of thinking about dust. A couple of times a month I take my Dyson to clear up some corners that the Roomba can't get to where dust bunnies pile up. I have a friend who combines it with the cleaning model, but I can't deal with two gadgets that leave their depleted, cable-choked corpses around.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#35
post #4

I do not own one, and I don't see the point of owning one until they can clean as well as a real vacuum. Can someone explain to me the draw?

Most people are really bad at vacuuming regularly. A robo-vac buys you more time between required vacuums. If you're happy to vacuum weekly and are already, don't buy one (seriously), but if like me you don't recall the last time you manually vacuumed then buy a $300 Xiaomi Mi and let it do your chore for you. Plus I've found that they get into places which people ignore (e.g. under the bed, bottom of the closet) and…

Can you share why you choosed the Xiaomi instead of a Roomba? Can it provide the same level of cleaning?

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#36

Question: how good are Roombas at actually cleaning? With an actual vacuum, I can turn it high or low, or press it harder or easier, or stick it at weird angles to make it clean. How good are Roombas in comparison?

It depends. For me, the automatically-scheduled Roomba does a much better job than me failing to vacuum at all for months. However, my Dyson certainly pulls more dirt out of the carpet when I bother to use it.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#37

I owned an Roomba and it works fine until recently its battery is going down quickly. I'm watching Neato recently and yes it sure has an upperhand with its patent, but the marketing is way behind iRobot.

Replacement batteries are relatively inexpensive and reliable. I've had good luck with replacing the battery on a Roomba and a Mint (now part of iRobot) via 3rd party manufacturers.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#38
Buying an irobot was one of the worst consumer decisions I ever made. It can only work with extreme supervision otherwise it mounts and scratches lamp bases, gets tangled in cords or assaults plants. What's the point of having it if you have to make the whole apartment inert before letting it loose. Worse still it never seemed to learn and would often finish its job leaving huge parts of the floor untouched.

And even worse, just past the warranty period the side brush which rotates to flick dirt into the path of the irobot broke.

I guess I am part of the 20% even though the irobot sits in my cellar doing nothing.

We bought a dyson fluffy (battery powered) recently and that's a much better choice.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#39

Buying an irobot was one of the worst consumer decisions I ever made. It can only work with extreme supervision otherwise it mounts and scratches lamp bases, gets tangled in cords or assaults plants. What's the point of having it if you have to make the whole apartment inert before letting it loose. Worse still it never seemed to learn and would often finish its job leaving huge parts of the floor untouched. And even…

Pretty much sums up my experience as well. The first step in using a roomba is cleaning the entire damn house.

Re: iRobot says robot vacuums now represent 20% of worldwide vacuum market

#40
I bought one a few years back. It just gets pinned under the two pieces of furniture that have a clearance that closely match its height. I've googled and googled but there seems to be no way to solve it other than super glueing some sort of makeshift horn on it and praying it doesn't crack off. It sits in the corner now because I'm not sure what to do about it. It was a whimsical good time for a while but ultimately a waste of $300.

I bought it at Costco so I'm considering just bringing it back, but I feel kind of guilty after waiting so long.

I made the mistake of buying one for my parents soon after I got mine for Christmas. Theirs eats the low hanging drapes, so it sits in the corner as well. I always wince at it when I go over there for dinner.

Don't do it.

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