from the when-a-business-sucks-and-it's-a-good-thing dept.
Robot vacuums may have once seemed an eccentricity, but they now represent a non-trivial portion of the overall vacuum market – 20 percent worldwide, according to iRobot CEO and co-founder Colin Angle, who I spoke to at TechCrunch Beijing 2016. And Roomba makes up 70 percent of that market, giving iRobot a commanding lead in the space.
Exactly how many robots does that translate to? Over 14 million Roombas sold to date, Angle said, which is a steady business for a consumer product that starts at a price point that tends to be a bit higher than your average human-powered home cleaning hardware.
iRobot's lead in the market should be easily defensible, Angle says, because the company has a long lead in terms of working on the problem, and because it's focused on consumer home cleaning products exclusively. iRobot's become even more focused of late, since the company recently divested itself of its defense and security robotics division and is now focused entirely on the home consumer space.
Do any Soylentils have a Roomba or some other automated cleaning system? What has your experience been like? How well does it work? What improvements are needed?
[Ed Note: A Robot Vacuum Cautionary Tale]
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday November 10 2016, @12:27PM
Damned Roombas, takin' our cleaning jobs. Sooner Donald ships 'em all back to Roomb the better.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @01:16PM
Don't even need a low wall.
Some rugs and lazy bachelor living (i.e.- schmutz on the floor) is enough to confound them.
Get to play find the roomba coming home some nights after the battery died trying to escape the maze of dirty laundry.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday November 10 2016, @01:41PM
I don't have a Roomba, but I have a similar cheaper thing that just moves at random and has brushes to sweep things into its body.
It tends to get stuck behind objects, it very much likes the bit behind the bed which is only just wide enough to get into but not quite to get out of in any reasonable amount of time.
It hasn't yet taken a dive down the stairs, but it comes close quite often.
It beeps after 30 minutes and turns itself off, so it's never where you expect it (definite hazard in the dark, being dark grey in colour).
It'll rip up or fire out things that get in its path, including cat tails (they are fascinated by it).
And, yes, anything like a table with chairs around it and you can just give up now. It'll never get to underneath them.
Kind of like a lot of technology - if you go to the effort to make it work properly, you might as wall have just done its job in the first place.
And if you made something that could pull all the chairs out, tidy the floor and recognise the cat tail and not eat it, then you don't need a robot vacuum - it could just use the normal vacuum, surely?
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday November 10 2016, @01:56PM
I would think that the philosophy of automation is, rather, this:
Rather than doing the job *over and over* thoroughly and completely... and manually.
This applies everywhere from simple backup scripts in sh/bash to vacuum cleaning robots to factory floor automation to missile guidance to aircraft avionics/autopilot automation to... you name it.
Wouldn't that make the otherwise "normal" vacuum into a really, really good robot vacuum?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:02PM
To be fair, I don't think a Roomba was really intended as a complete cleaning unit. It is more touch-up in-between (or for very specific circumstances)
It does raise the question however if it is worth the price.
Bought it, so that's a done deal, but I wouldn't buy another one unless it was more a discretionary purchase.
(Score: 3, Informative) by art guerrilla on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:52PM
happy owner of a cheap roomba knockoff ($150 vs $1000!) which works GREAT for our circumstances... we have hardwood or tile floors throughout, with only a few flat/non-plush rugs... with two dogs and ourselves traipsing in and out, we are constantly having gritty, hairy floors, until the once every week or two for major, regular vacuuming... the vacbot comes on at a certain time (um, which im not sure we can change after one of the dogs chewed up the remote), does its light vaccuming, and keeps the floors grit free...
pretty much think the other poster is both exaggerating shortcomings (which do exist), and being just a *leeeeetle* bit of a spoiled first worlder in that since it isnt perfect (what is?), it isnt worth it... whatevs...
took the dogs a while to get used to it, and as several other posters have mentioned, there is some stuff you cant have lying around or it will choke on it...
overall, very happy with the VERY low effort we expend vs the pretty darn good job it does...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:39PM
> a cheap roomba knockoff
Brand/model?
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:59PM
got from amazonians, brand was ilife, forget model...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:50PM
I saw a three Roombas sexually assaulting a white college girl once. They were dealing drugs too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:09PM
Doubtful.
It was more likely STEM grant for a sexbot* experiment gone awry.
It has a 14 inch attachment AND vacuums.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:43PM
They weren't sexually assaulting her. They were just touching her... uh... cat? :}
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @07:13PM
ACQUIRE THEM BY THE FELIS CATUS!
(Score: 5, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:00PM
Do any Soylentils have a Roomba or some other automated cleaning system? What has your experience been like? How well does it work? What improvements are needed?
I have one, and my experience has been overall positive. The convenience of the automation is basically the difference between me vacuuming once a week and procrastinating until the place looks like a dump. If you're lazy and have a place that's free of major obstructions I warmly recommend one. There are drawbacks of course. Some will affect some people more than others. In no particular order:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:17PM
I've been thinking about getting a Roomba for a few years now. The only thing that makes me hesitate is that I have this nasty dust mite allergy. I'm concerned that it may make my allergies worse by kicking up dust (I can't even use a normal vacuum cleaner due to the dust).
Has anyone here with dust-related allergies purchased one? Did your allergies change? For the better or for worse?
(Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:44PM
I'm concerned that it may make my allergies worse by kicking up dust (I can't even use a normal vacuum cleaner due to the dust).
If you're that allergic, I would expect that emptying/cleaning the Roomba after it's done would be your death. :-P
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @05:03PM
They're not self-emptying? D:
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @06:21PM
We bought a house from the 1960s and a previous owner had installed a whole-house vacuum system. At the time of purchase I didn't think too much about it, but now I'm completely sold. For people with allergies, this system vacuums in the house, collects most of the dirt in a large canister in the basement and sends the exhaust air OUTSIDE. The heck with HEPA filters, there is zero dust thrown around indoors.
Another advantage of this vacuum with a long hose (and several outlets around the house) is that it's easy to get to elevated areas, shelves and the top of door moldings.
For the two of us, I empty the basement canister every two years. I cover the top after removing it from the motor, take outside and dump into a garbage bag...on a calm day.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:07PM
Huh, never heard of that before. Thanks for posting.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @04:55AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_vacuum_cleaner#Health_benefits [wikipedia.org]
Ours is Sears branded, don't know actual maker, added to our house in the 1980s along with a kitchen reno. Has a large powerful motor and centrifugal fan, much more suck than any portable vacuum I've used (except for large shop vac). Noisy as hell up close, but it's in the basement, quieter than a portable vac as long as I keep the basement door closed.
The switches are at the wall plate where the hose plugs in, so the hoses are just hoses. I'm suspicious of newer designs that also run a wire along the hose so that the power can be switched at the end of the hose--much more expensive hose and another point of failure.
Where did you grow up that you never saw one of these? I knew about them as a kid (rust belt suburbs), just never appreciated them until I lucked into one.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 10 2016, @04:59PM
Had an early model Rumba.
Unreliable.
We never sought a replacement when it finally crapped out. Simply not worth the aggravation.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @04:59PM
This basically matches my experience also, per basic models. Battery issues are the biggest bottleneck we see. They only last about 8 months for us. If I used the timing tricks mentioned by the parent post, they'd probably last longer, but I forget to.
I wish they had smarter obstacle detection to avoid cords, socks, etc. However, I imagine adding such detection would increase battery demands, which is already a problem.
Adding auto-cleaning to the brushes would be nice also. If your house has a lot of long-haired people or pets, brush-cleaning takes a while.
And I wish the industry or regulations would standardize batteries so that we could recycle them and get new/recharged ones easier.
There's a lot of potential room for improvement in such bots. I wonder how the higher-end models do. Over time their tech should move to the lower-end models.
Old-fashioned vacuuming is a form of exercise such that it's probably good we don't entirely rely on the bot. We let the bot do the "easy" rooms, and we do the trickier ones manually.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday November 10 2016, @06:56PM
Doesn't work well in places with fixed obstacles, like stairs, high thresholds, et.c.
Wait, what? I thought it would do well on obstacles that never move since it can remember their positions. Isn't pretty much everything in a room a fixed obstacle?
Or, do you mean it isn't able to navigate over these things? This I would expect.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:39PM
since it can remember their positions
Remember?
Maybe the latest models can remember rooms, but the Rumba (and knock offs) discovered the same wall for the first time about 60 times per minute. They literally felt their way around a room at random by bumping into stuff and then making a random-ish turn.
They found stairs by going over the edge a little bit then backing and turning away. Only to do the same thing again in 12 seconds.
The randomly cleaned the same spots a hundred times, while missing others entirely.
Newer units are arriving on the market that map rooms, and supposedly devise an efficient cleaning pattern, but these are in their infancy, and usually require a human to tell them what room they are in and start them from the same place each time. And the whole thing goes out the window when you move one piece of furniture.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday November 10 2016, @10:14PM
Oh shit, I did not realize they had no positioning model built in, or if there is one, it is shit.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Informative) by jrial on Thursday November 10 2016, @11:42PM
I have a Neato Botvac D85, and it maps the rooms in realtime. If I have the doors to the adjacent rooms open, it will first clean the room it starts in, then move to the next, and so on. In my case, it starts in the living room, which has a door to a currently unused room, which then leads to the little hallway that houses the staircase. The second door in the living room opens to the hallway to the side entrance and the room with the washing machines. And that's exactly the order in which it cleans the rooms.
Apparently it will automatically return to base to recharge when the battery gets too low, but it has never been necessary so far.
It's not perfect though. The lidar scans at a certain height, and obstacles higher or lower are not detected. So the lidar dome may get caught under a cupboard that has just enough clearance for the beam, but not the top, or it could find itself fruitlessly attempting to scale the outwardly curved legs of a designer chair because it looks like a pillar from the beam's perspective. It also has major problems with my dining table and chairs, which have thin legs which apparently are too narrow to be detected.
But all in all, I'm happy with it, annoying imperfections and all. I don't like cleaning, and I have a cat, and a father who regularly visits and tracks dust and dirt from the yard all over the house. Cleaning felt like a pointless waste of time. Now, I still gotta clean with water, but at least the day to day cat hairs, dust and dirt are taken care of automatically (cleans daily at a preset time). All I need to do is clean the dust bin twice a week and occasionally blow out the filter until it's time to replace it. Oh, and every so often I have to rescue it when it manages to get stuck again. Heck, today it managed to get stuck against a chair with nowhere to go except left, right or backwards. ;-)
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
(Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Friday November 11 2016, @05:14AM
do you mean it isn't able to navigate over these things?
That was the main idea behind that comment. If you have high thresholds or the like you have to manually move the Roomba between areas. However frojack was also entirely correct when he pointed out that these things don't actually seem to remember squat (at least mine doesn't), though I haven't experienced the problem that he mentioned of missing some spots entirely. Basically the thing runs around for so long that it will cover my entire apartment - most places more than once. I suppose the size of the apartment matters. Mine is a bit over 50 m^2.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @07:35PM
I used to have a cat, but not sure what happened to it. but the cat seemed to disappear right around when the Roomba had this big nasty blob of grey hair in it... Just a strange coincidence, I'm sure...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:52PM
The numbers in the summary makes no sense:
Total robots: 100 * 14,000,000 / 70 = 20,000,000
Total vacuums: 100 * 20,000,000 / 20 = 100,000,000
Only 100 million vacuums worldwide?
(Score: 5, Informative) by aclarke on Thursday November 10 2016, @02:59PM
Usually when people refer to having a percentage of the market, they're referring to sales. So, currently, say last quarter, robot vacuums were 20% of the total sold, and Roombas were 70% of that 20%.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Thursday November 10 2016, @04:41PM
Yeah, but what percent of square footage is done by robot? Probably not much.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday November 10 2016, @03:56PM
iRobot Says 20 Percent of the World’s Vacuums Are Now Robots
That seems pretty unlikely. Maybe 20% of new vacuum sales are robots, but it's not like people buy a new one every year.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday November 11 2016, @10:48AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @07:38PM
Pros: cheaper to run.
Cons: allergy or asthma sufferers beware! You need to manually empty the dust container, generating a cloud of dust to inhale!
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday November 11 2016, @10:55AM
We can blame Dyson for un-inventing the paper vacuum bag. Not only that, but somehow he made it fashionable too; it was the techno-baubles decorating his stuff that people fell for. And in a transparent container too - he even made it "stylish" to be able see the crap inside your vac.
My Mother had a pre-paper-bag Hoover (in 1950's?) and emptying it was like setting off a dust bomb. Then paper bag vacs came along like the best thing since sliced bread.
Then came Dyson. Thanks a bundle, Dyson
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @07:51PM
Get a central vacuum. Those things are amazing. Quiet and 1000% more effective than your HEPA crap. Why? Cause the bad stuff actually goes away instead of getting airborne again.
If I was elected the Dark Lord I'd make those mandatory tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday November 11 2016, @11:12AM
Robot vacuums may have once seemed an eccentricity
Eccentric? I never saw them like that; just unconvinced that one could pick its way round the stuff in my rooms (or better still pick the stuff up and clean under it).
Looking around me now I see on the floor :-
Desk, two swivel chairs with "octopus" legs, four PC sytem units, junk, two camera bags, about six plastic crates of paperwork and other junk, haversack, more junk, two toolboxes, three briefcases, two disused monitors - I won't go on. When occasionally I vac this place I move this stuff around which is the main part of the job. The manual vacuuming is then trivial.
If I/when I get a throne room [1000things-london.com] with a huge empty carpeted space I might give a robot cleaner a try.