I invented Roomba and assure you, robots won’t take over the world

According to the materials released by Qualcomm in 2018 (by which point, the Roomba i7 would have already have had lines in that plant), the processor used is a ARQ8009, a quad-core ARM processor commonly used in smartphones[0]. It's tough to find prices because the contracts are negotiated individually, but I'd put money on those chips costing much more than $1.00/piece.

Comparing VSLAM to lidar in any way besides saying that they technically can both be used to measure movement is also incorrect, and to actually call it a "kind of a cut-rate lidar" can only be due to a fundamental misunderstanding of VSLAM, lidar, or both.

Lidar measures distance along a single axis, with no additional information provided. You get movement by measuring changes in position by directly updating the distance value and inferring position change. It can be made robust by adding multiple lidar sensors, but is subject to weird edge cases with reflective materials or sunlight.

VSLAM only can measure change in vehicle position through the estimated position changes of significant image features through time, and provides no information about vehicle distance to the surroundings while the robot is standing still. You'd require stereo vision for that, and that does require more processing power, typically including a GPU like the one included in the NVIDIA Jetsons. You'd also typically use sensor fusion with an IMU, odometry, etc. to help with that.

Without stereo vision, you need motion to estimate position, which fundamentally makes VSLAM different from lidar, and makes your claim that it is "kind of a cut-rate lidar" completely false.

I'm not sure which DSP acronym you're referring to as a budget version of image processing , but if it has to do with digital signal processing, then yeah, of course. That's kind of the definition.

[0] https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2018/12/17/help-qualcomm-t...

VSLAM is computer vision. Full stop. Here's an article about it in a Springer Computer Vision guide [0]. I don't know what your personal definition requires for that to be the case, but if it doesn't include point recognition and persistent tracking by an integrated RGB camera, then I think it's unreasonably out of line with that of the rest of the field.

Which, just so we're clear, is the eighth reputable primary source I've presented you with directly refuting claims you've made.

Yes, I understood your point that you feel VSLAM is less than lidar. My point is that it's like stating that the moon is purple. Comprehensible, but wrong. And not in a "beside the point" way, but in a way that directly laid out why a core piece of your argument regarding how you try to compare VSLAM with lidar is invalid. Pretty sure that's not pedantry.

[0] https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0...

Also, I think you're underestimating both how valuable and complicated VSLAM is. Sure, it's not a multi-billion dollar state-of-the-art composite deep learning model trained on thousands of hours of data running on custom silicon, but it's hardly "This area is dark, and there's a bright thing over there!" Even if VSLAM only included visual odometry, that would still be a major improvement over other options in autonomous navigation, which is absolutely key in other domains that you seem to consider state-of-the-art. It's the same technology, and investments therein that make things like the RangerBot possible[1]. In a competitive market where BOM cost is a serious consideration, if you could get better results by not using VSLAM and relying only on something like laser odometry instead, that's what would be done.

Also, I'm honestly a little annoyed at your implication that I'm the one not having a good-faith discussion, while you have blatantly and repeatedly made false statements that could have been figured out by doing your own research, notable by your failure to provide any actual sources, instead making tangential anecdotal references to try to back up your statements. Heck, let's not forget your initial claim wasn't "limited vision" (which I debate anyway), but "no vision", and "no model of their environment" which again isn't simply true.

[0] https://store.irobot.com/default/roomba-vacuuming-robot-vacu...

[1] https://good-design.org/projects/rangerbot/