robot vacuum

topic posted Tue, June 1, 2004 - 4:46 PM by 
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does anyone use a robot to clean the floor surfaces?

my monster is getting a lot of hair all over the floor of the spaceship and i need a recomendation...
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  • Re: robot vacuum

    Tue, June 1, 2004 - 5:19 PM
    I've seriously considered getting a Roomba but don't want to spend the $$$.

    www.sharperimage.com/us/en/c...ew.jhtml
    • Re: robot vacuum

      Tue, June 1, 2004 - 5:45 PM
      Do you think that one is noisy?
      I want it to sound nice too...

      229.00 is better than cleaning up 400 monster hairs a day

      it is less than a dollar a day for a year...
      • Re: robot vacuum

        Tue, June 1, 2004 - 9:34 PM
        My father is buying my mother a Roomba. I'm planning to send her some experiments to do for me.

        When I saw/heard a Roomba operating it sounded pretty quiet to me. Besides, I think the point is to program it to vacuum for a few hours while you are out of the spaceship.
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          offline 121

          Re: robot vacuum

          Tue, June 1, 2004 - 10:28 PM
          I ead a review of the Roomba and it was not that good. It has a very small receiver. A big deal for picking up my dog hair. Also it does a browian motion sweep of the room. Takes hours to get every spot.
          • Re: robot vacuum

            Wed, June 2, 2004 - 3:50 AM
            Yeah but that's part of the design. Getting the thing to systematically cover the room without spending a lot of time going over the same spots requires some onboard intelligence, and onboard intelligence really cranks up the NRE and per unit costs. So forget intelligence. And who cares if it takes hours to vacuum the room? You go away for a few hours, come back, and the floor is clean...

            Now, if the floor isn't clean, scratch all that. If it won't pick up your dog's hair then I agree, it's useless. I have to admit that I've only seen the thing work in lab or conference demos.
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              Re: robot vacuum

              Wed, June 2, 2004 - 4:48 AM
              The major flaw i read about was in a typical room it did a very bad job around things like chair and table legs. Where dog hair tends to accumulate. It tends to traverse open areas and bounce away from obsticals.
              • Re: robot vacuum

                Wed, June 2, 2004 - 1:09 PM
                that sucks (or doesn't suck, heehee) cause I have cats. rats!
                • Re: robot vacuum

                  Wed, June 2, 2004 - 3:52 PM
                  what is a comparable product to this?

                  I want a robo vacuum that sounds like a symphony...

                  I have a braun vibrating toothbruth and a sonic care..
                  the braun one sounds better..

                  I am sensitive to sound... the sonic care vibrates my teeth and hurts my brain waves...

                  Is there an alternitive to the main robot vaccum on the market?
                  I need something that its motor frequency is soothing to my timpanic membranes...
              • Re: robot vacuum

                Wed, June 2, 2004 - 7:53 PM
                > The major flaw i read about was in a typical room it did a
                > very bad job around things like chair and table legs. Where
                > dog hair tends to accumulate. It tends to traverse open areas
                > and bounce away from obsticals.

                That is not the least bit surprising. I also wouldn't be surprised if they would say that Roomba needs to be assisted by you "touching up" around the floorboards, table legs, etc.

                Damn, decades of research in mobile robots and this is where we've gotten...
                • Re: robot vacuum

                  Wed, June 2, 2004 - 9:59 PM
                  hey look I competed my robot against a 7 year old japanese girl and got my ass kicked,,,

                  I have a degree and spent time in the vehichel assembly building where they put the space ships off...

                  Hey who has the way nice floor cleaner for my space ship?
  • Re: robot vacuum

    Fri, June 18, 2004 - 2:43 PM
    I have a roomba, and I love it. Here are a few of my thoughts:

    -If you have a long haired cat, forget it. Long hair cats KILL the roomba. I dont blame the roomba, because long haired cats are hell on any vacuum. Short haired cats are Ok, though, you just have to vacuum more often.

    -It does take a roomba longer to vacuum a room than a human controlled vacuum.... BUT YOU DONT HAVE TO. Every other day when I leave for work, I set the Roomba on the MAX setting (available on some versions, it runs the Roomba until the battery dies) and just leave. When I come home, the house is clean and I plug the Roomba back in.

    -It takes a couple runs before you "Roomba proof" your house. It will get stuck under dressers of a certain height, et cetera. I have one dresser that was particularly troublesome, but it was easily solved by placing a couple bricks underneath.

    I highly recomend the roomba. It is not perfect, and there is a long list of things I would like to see done with it. However, it is the first of its type, and thats what you get for being on the bleeding edge.
    • Re: robot vacuum

      Fri, June 18, 2004 - 7:40 PM
      Todd it picks up hairs right?

      A german scientist was over at my place recently.

      He said the reason why german houses are so clean is because you have to take your shoes off at a wet room or at the door.

      I explained that doesnt remove the 200 plus body hairs a day a biped loses...


      If the roomba doenst get rid of long hairs of a cat...
      does it get rid of long human hair?
      • Re: robot vacuum

        Fri, June 18, 2004 - 9:25 PM
        >>I explained that doesnt remove the 200 plus body hairs a day a biped loses...

        no, but all those socks on the rug do.
      • Re: robot vacuum

        Sat, June 19, 2004 - 2:36 PM
        we take off our shoes before we walk in the apartment.

        we don't request this of others.

        I have long hair. hmmn.

        I hope roomba likes cat litter, there is a trail from the poobox in the bathroom into the hall. go roomba!
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          offline 121

          Re: robot vacuum

          Sat, June 19, 2004 - 8:18 PM
          OMG you have to Roomba proof your house to use it. That's really building a friendly product.
          • Re: robot vacuum

            Sun, June 20, 2004 - 10:31 AM
            ROOMBA!
            • Re: robot vacuum

              Mon, June 21, 2004 - 3:02 PM
              I want a robot mop to vaccum and then mop the floor removing
              the spills of food from the kitchen floor...
              • Re: robot vacuum

                Mon, June 21, 2004 - 3:17 PM
                ditto
                • Re: robot vacuum

                  Mon, June 21, 2004 - 4:40 PM
                  I would rather have an automatic device than human help

                  reason is a butler and a driver and a palades instructor and a maid and lots of people coming into the space ship disturb things...

                  I have learned my lesson...

                  When we lived in london last year the company had a maid live in our garden flat.. while a fine person she was a jamacian christian pot smoking tv watching dope dealing maid... When the costume jewelry dissapeared I got to have the police take her fingerprints which were found on the jewelry box...
                  what an annoying problem... the costume jewelry did not reappear but I had to hear a lot of her singing gospel reggae hymns as her condolenses for the mysterious missing jewelry.

                  A robot maid would not smoke pot, watch tv, or steal petty jewelery..
                  well initially until it got smart...

                  That would be just great as you can remotely control someone elses bot to open the door and let a real human intrude...

                  get my drift?
                  • This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.

                    Re: robot vacuum

                    Mon, June 21, 2004 - 5:10 PM
                    someone told me that Eureka is coming out with their own robot vacuum that is suppose to be much better than Roomba.

                    I agree, the less human interaction the better.

                    I found the bones of all your ghosts
                    Locked in the wishing well
                    While birdsong gourmets dragged empty nets
                    I slumbered in my shell

                    In mitternacht, die mensch-maschine
                    Kissed me on my eyes
                    I rose and left the fire-ladies
                    Glowing lonely in the night
                    With all the pornographers
                    Burning torches beneath the sea


                    I want to be a machine
                    I want to be a machine
                    I want to be a machine
                    I want to be a machine

                    I stole a cathode face from newscasts
                    And a crumbling fugue of songs
                    From the reservoir of video souls
                    In the lakes beneath my tongue
                    In flesh of ash and silent movies
                    I walked at boulevards again
                    A nebula of unfinished creatures
                    From the lifetimes of my friends
                    I hope your innocence has depraved me


                    Broadcast me, scrambled clean
                    Or free me from this flesh
                    Let the armchair cannibals take their fill
                    In every cell across wilderness
                    We'll trip such a strangled tango
                    We'll waltz a wonderland affair
                    Let's run to meet the tide tomorrow
                    Leave all emotion dying there
                    In the star cold beyond all of your dreams
                    • Re: robot vacuum

                      Sun, August 13, 2006 - 10:32 AM
                      Just bought a roomba after reading various threads and reviews. Got the red one. I was introduced to the roomba by a store owner and her friend. They swore by it. I will post again when I have used it for a while.

                      I agree with most of the posts...it's an aid in cleaning which is no replacment for a human (at least a good one) and you have to vacuume proof your house before vacuuming, so it's no different for me to roomba-proof. I just want the woof hair picked up most of the time. And I am tired of doing it.

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