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I am mesmerized by our new robotic vacuum (2019)

by mzehrer on 3/16/20, 10:35 AM with 179 comments

• by aasasd on 3/16/20, 11:51 AM

  I bought a robotic vacuum more out of curiosity and to see if I should buy one as a gift for my parents. Just one of the cheapest models that still had good reviews.

  It turned out that all deficiencies of such a vacuum are offset by its basic function: it keeps the apartment clean each day, every day. Dirty corners? Weak suction? Small container? Somewhat noisy? Not too smart? Gets stuck sometimes? I need to clean hairs out of the rotating brush? I still have to mop the place? Pffft, none of this matters when the carpet and the kitchen are dust-free every day without me doing the vacuuming. If it misses a spot today, it will get it tomorrow. After a few runs the floor is indeed cleaner than it ever was, and stays that way. No rogue crumbs stuck to my feet before the cleanup day. Still managed to find something unpleasant on the floor? Just give the robot a bit of work right here. It's like SSDs after HDDs: you have to worry about having backups, but it'll be amazing in the meantime.

  Rather prophetically, the cheap production has shown itself when something got cooked in the electronic insides and the vac entered the eternity of ‘error 03’.

• by chewxy on 3/16/20, 11:30 AM

  A good way to explore the algorithms of the robot is to set it out to run in the night. At the entrance of the room, set a high obstruction. Set up a tripod. Take long exposure photos every minute or so. Then turn on the lights/wait till day time. Take another photo. Overlay the photos in an editor program. Spot the missing areas.

  EDIT: here are some examples by other people: https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/lon...

  And here are some resources if you have a Xiaomi robot vacuum cleaner (also sold as RoboRock) https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud

• by kaskavalci on 3/16/20, 1:54 PM

  I do not trust Eufy brand anymore. We had a Eufy RoboVac and within its warranty period, battery went bust. When attached to its station, it gave some sound errors which is apparently tied to its battery. I contacted support several times, reminded their obligation for warranty period but they did nothing. They asked me to find a "certified technician" to get a report such that this malfunction was present when I made the purchase. I asked what do they want as "certified technician" and where can I get one. They stopped replying. This took a week.

  Fortunately I bought the item from Amazon. I issued a dispute and within minutes they created a return label and issued a refund.

  I now have a Roomba. I'm pretty happy so far.

• by dharma1 on 3/16/20, 12:47 PM

  I've had the Xiaomi one for a couple of years, the one with lidar. It's great. Used to love watching the app as the little guy gets to work and the map starts building realtime.

  It runs Ubuntu, you can root it. And even get spotify running on it.

  https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud

  https://medium.com/@anxodio/how-to-get-spotify-working-on-yo...

• by eat_veggies on 3/16/20, 2:51 PM

  The algorithm of going straight until you hit a wall, and then turning a (constant) angle has some really cool properties -- some angles/starting positions will eventually let you cover the entire floor, while others will produce beautiful repeating patterns [1].

  One key insight for visualizing "hitting a wall and then turning" is that you can pretend that the walls in your room are covered with mirrors that you can walk through. Hitting the wall and bouncing at an angle is equivalent to approaching the mirror at your angle, and then continuing straight through it into the mirrored side. You can verify this in your bathroom mirror by bouncing your finger off it, vs. pretending it goes straight through: in both cases, which side of the bathroom does it bounce toward?

  After a finite distance of continuing straight through mirror-walls, do you end up in your original location? I.e. can you see the back of your head in the room of mirrors? If so, then you're on a periodic path, and you're not going to cover the entire floor.

  [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11310.pdf

• by ballballball on 3/16/20, 12:26 PM

  I too bought a robotic vacuum out of curiosity (high end iRobot) and found the algorithm to be completely inadequate both in it's mapping and it's ability to adequately cover the area that it was supposed to clean. Additionally it left random patterns in the carpet that could only be described as a drunk toddler vacuuming... in other words, it didn't look clean. It took more than 3 days to map the three rooms that it was supposed to clean, getting stuck away from it's base unable to return because it's charge ran out. It would also get stuck under my bed. I'm not certain how it's possible that it could have done a worse job. I waited for years to enter the robot vacuum market and can state unequivocally that waiting 9 generations wasn't enough of a wait.

• by systemtest on 3/16/20, 5:01 PM

  I've owned a mid-segment Roomba in 2019 for about 48 hours. The downsides included aggressively bumping into my thin-legged chairs, moving them for a couple of centimeters before coming to a stop. Not being able to vacuum black carpet. Not being able to vacuum dark rooms, so I either have to leave all the lights on when I leave or leave the curtains open (thus letting in cold). It broke the delicate moulding at the base of the radiators by ramming into it. It would distribute the coconut fibers of the doormat all over the house. It would go under the bed but would not be able to get out. And I had to enable 2.4Ghz WiFi after all these years. Which was troublesome because my iPhone was connected to the 5Ghz network and it tries to copy your iPhone network to the Roomba.

  Returned it. Doing a 15 minute vacuum every Saturday morning is easier for me than to deal with all this, and it keeps the house tidy during the week.

• by klingonopera on 3/16/20, 1:47 PM

  > " Dammit, Amazon, it's so hard to quit you."

  What? I'm not even in the US, but DDG'ing the "Eufy RoboVac 30" brings me straight to the manufacturer's website, where it's even $40 cheaper. Why give "Lord Bezos" a piece of the cake, when he doesn't even need to have one?

  Maybe it wasn't so at the time of writing, but I have a weird feeling it's en vogue to claim to be against Amazon, but to then find some half-assed reason as to why they're still the "only sensible" choice, and so it's all good. WTF? Are these Amazon-financed articles?

• by jspash on 3/16/20, 11:18 AM

  I'm still in the cynic camp for a few reasons. 1. My flat is small. I can do a decent vac in about 15 minutes. 30 minutes if I do under the bed. 2. When I do the "big vac", I have to move 6 dining room chairs. Then shift the table a few inches. Zoom. Shift if back. Same goes for some other legged furniture. 3. I also do the windowsills. No bot can do this. 4. Don't you end up with little arched dust patterns in every corner of every room? How does a round vacuum do this? Seriously! This is the deal-breaker for me unless they have some little robot-wars-style dust-brush that shoots out to get into the 90 degree angles.

  All that said, I really really want one!

• by newforms on 3/16/20, 2:49 PM

  My brother inlaw had a Roomba after testing several of these. He went out one day and came back several hours later to find his dog had defecated on the floor and the robo-vac had smeared the entire downstairs with poo. The vac was never the same after that

• by klausjensen on 3/16/20, 11:17 AM

  Great read!

  15 years ago, I had one of the first robot lawnmovers (Husqvarna) and did exactly the same thing: Watched it for hours, observing how it worked.

  Back then, it seems it was programmed with instructions:

  - Go! If you hit an edge, rotate in a random direction and ... Go! - If crossing the base-wire (a buried wire leading to the base station) while battery level < 40%, follow it and charge.

• by alfiedotwtf on 3/16/20, 12:41 PM

  Yep.

  Another one is watching 3D printer’s. There’s something soothing with just starting at the print head while the plastic oozes out and creates something tangible. It’s Star Trek’s replicator v0.00001. After a while, you realise you’ve been staring at it for 45 minutes.

• by graton on 3/17/20, 11:54 AM

  I like this video from Philip Bloom who has two vacuum cleaners running at night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdR0JT652T4

  I won't spoil what happens with them :) But the interesting thing happens at about 1:10 into the video.

• by tantalor on 3/16/20, 4:06 PM

  > Thanks to Lord Bezos ... Dammit, Amazon, it's so hard to quit you

  I'm confused how Amazon is relevant here. This product is available from many online retailers under $200.

  If you want to quit Amazon... then maybe try even a little?

• by goodoldneon on 3/16/20, 2:41 PM

  Be wary about running your Roomba unattended if you have a dog. Our pup dropped a load in our bedroom and the Roomba smeared it 5 feet across the carpet. Some bits were stuck to the front bumper, so the Roomba left little poo polka dots on our baseboards.

• by sigwinch28 on 3/16/20, 6:13 PM

  This article is good, but it misses out a few more essential features about the device which make it a little bit more intelligent than they've discovered so far:

  - It has infrared proximity sensors spread around the bumper which allow it to slow down before hitting a wall or other large flat surface, avoid it entirely (for example to turn around and shoot off in another direction), or do quite precise edge cleaning without relying on the bumper. This works best on walls or skirting boards.

  - The base station has an infrared beacon which the robot uses to find id. Furthermore, the robot can judge whether it is on or off-axis relative to the base station (i.e. whether it is lined up straight or not). The robot doesn't just dive in from any angle: it tries to line up first.

  - It has some level of stall detection for its motors: if the brushes or wheels get stuck on something, it will stop. The internet-connected versions of these vacuums will send out a notification when this happens.

• by JoeAltmaier on 3/16/20, 2:39 PM

  By now there are many videos of robot vacuums covering areas. Its very informative. Not necessary to wait and see what a brand will do; just find a video and watch it in fast-time.

  I have a Shark IQ which some videos rate as the best in the middle class. We have 1200sqft to cover and it can do about half that on a charge, methodically.

  But it often gets stuck behind the AV center, or behind the piano, or wedged under my wife's chair or a certain cabinet baseboard in the bathroom. At least once a week. And with nobody home, the voice alert calling for help is pointless (scheduled to run when nobody is home).

  So it just runs its batteries down waiting. If it could do one more thing better, I would say go into low-power when stuck?

  Anyway we like it, gave it a name ("Puck") and each day check if Puck 'made it home'. If not its a pleasant job walking around to find where Puck got stuck. Not a bad purchase at all, considering the always-clean floors(!) and the entertainment value to boot.

• by chasd00 on 3/16/20, 1:49 PM

  my wife showed up with one she found on clearance and then with some additional discounts. I was skeptical but every time it runs the little dustbin is completely full. I figure if it didn't run, all that dirt, dust, pet hair would still be on the floor. I wonder if all the roombas gossip about how dirty our floors are to other roombas over wifi..

• by pabs3 on 3/16/20, 12:41 PM

  In case folks are interested in digging deeper, there is libre robot vacuum firmware:

  https://librervac.org/

• by kube-system on 3/16/20, 5:08 PM

  Too many people make the mistake of assuming that a robot should solve the problem the same way that humans do.

  You have to into the account the respective strengths and weaknesses of humans and robots.

  I can easily best a robot at sensing the layout of my living room, but a robot can easily best me at perseverance.

• by voiper1 on 3/16/20, 1:10 PM

  I got a robo-vac, but ultimately stopped using it because of chairs and children. I had to clean up in order to run it at all, and it would get stuck under the chairs and not be able to get out. (I guess exactly the wrong sizing.)

  I mainly got it because my wife and I have a dust-mite allergy and cleaning the floor with water or HEPA vacuum can help. We've replaced it with a much more expensive (and totally manual) hizero[1] wet vacuum, and it's great. Also, we have tile floors so wet always cleans better than a vacuum (and wet pads need to be cleaned/replaced way too often on a robo-vacuum).

  [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og8lhk3oZe8

• by amelius on 3/16/20, 12:53 PM

  I suspect there is some bias going on here. I bet if you just watched a simulation of the robot (which could probably even run in the browser), you wouldn't be all that impressed. The fact that it has motors and that it moves makes it cool.

• by rini17 on 3/16/20, 12:32 PM

  Nobody seems to mention: How do you empty the dust compartment without stirring up the dust?

  My vacuum (Robzone) collects it in plastic box that is to be opened and cleaned out into trashbin with attached brush, the dust inevitably gets airborne.

• by thallukrish on 3/16/20, 6:59 PM

  I can relate to the author's curiosity of how such a random movement ends up doing a near perfect clean in the given time. I have tried to understand how my basic Roomba works as well. One simple algorithm could be that it is simply storing the path it travels randomly like a criss-cross, zig-zag path and ends up filling a imaginary polygon with those zig-zag movement. That's probably the reason it does not get stuck doing the same part of a room again and again.

• by 6510 on 3/16/20, 1:29 PM

  I think it could be perfect if you do something like Bose and measure the building before installing the bots.

  As a professional cleaner I have the following suggestion:

  Make A cleaning schedule with different frequencies for different tasks. For humans you have to limit complexity, the robot cant get enough of it.

  The trick is to do a great job with the least runtime and perfect timing.

  1 (Highest frequency): The visible areas when walking from the front door to the seat where your guests will sit. The entire house can be either 1) a complete mess, it will still look clean. Or 2) the entire house can be supper clean it still wont look clean.

  Some cameras would be nifty here.

  1.1: edges for 1

  2: Same as 1 for all frequently used paths in the house except those covered by 1. Could split this up into levels of frequency.

  2.1: edges for 2

  3rd: All open surfaces not covered by 1 and 2.

  3.1: all edges not covered by 1.1 and 2.1

  The edges are done roughly every 4th round.

  The 1st it can do multiple times per day depending on traffic. (1 times is a good minimum) It could by a dynamic number based on motion sensors. Timing is everything, if the room is empty it can do its thing for 2-3 minutes (quit if someone walks in) Nr 2 is done half to 1/3 as frequent as 1. Nr 3 is done half to 1/3 as frequent as 2.

  I've used the above system for years and it continues to amaze me how quick one can execute the routine and how clean everything looks. Nr 1 sometimes takes no more than a gaze around the room.

  Without such system one just does "everything" every time which is a lot more work than it seems. (enough work to cut the same corners every time) The result also looks really inferior.

• by samsolomon on 3/16/20, 1:02 PM

  Robot vacuums have been such a game changer for me. It's funny because functionally they are worse than a cordless sick or full-size vacuum in almost every way. However being able to turn it on before I head for work everyday makes a giant difference.

  One thing I am skeptical of is robot vacuums that connect to the internet. Some of the higher end Roombas do that and I'm skeptical that it makes them more efficient. Wrote some more about it here:

  https://productdork.com/t/whats-the-best-robot-vacuum-cleane...

  The good news is that the Eufy's seem to work fine without any internet connectivity. I've got the Eufy RoboVac 11S and would highly recommend it. Unlike my previous Roomba, it doesn't speed up before bumping into things—it mostly avoids it. Also, it is significantly quieter.

• by hadlock on 3/16/20, 7:23 PM

  We got one of these about three years ago. It saved our relationship.

  The big complaint I always hear is "yeah but the pattern is random, it doesn't clean the whole floor evenly"

  That is technically true, but the roomba cleans the floor for an hour, randomly, every day. This is a tremendous amount of cleaning. It pulls probably a pound of dirt off the floor every week, maybe more. Being able to have the floor cleaned - even randomly - for an hour, every day, makes a tremendous difference.

  It might not get the spilled cat food for 2-3 days, but on day 4 it will get it. If you're only vacuuming once a week that is probably faster than a human would do it. It also vacuums all the weird spots, like under the sink in the bathroom, that you forget to check every week.

  It also trains you to not leave stray socks, cell phone charging cables etc on the floor. Which is nice if you're not super super tidy.

• by roland35 on 3/16/20, 11:27 AM

  Working on robotic lawn mowers - I still had the same feeling watching them do their thing. You can get pretty far with random turns with some edge following.

  One thing that can help a lot is gps (or other absolute position). This can definitely help make sure your robot can make roughly the correct turn to get in those nooks.

• by rubidium on 3/16/20, 12:20 PM

  My in-laws just got one for their lake house, and it’s been equally fun to watch.

  It’s the perfect thing for there because the last thing you want to do after a relaxing weekend at the lake is vacuum. Just hit go before leaving and you’re set.

  Now I’m curious about the lawn ones. Anyone have any experience to share?

• by PeterStuer on 3/17/20, 6:39 AM

  Getting a robot to fully path cover a surface by a random walk type algorithm is surprizingly difficult. One of the nuances most simulators do not fully grasp is that there are path rectifiers that emerge from physical interactions. Examples are collisions with walls where even though the robot comes in at a range of different angles, due to momentum and friction variance is lost and it leaves in a more narrow set of angles. Another example is grooved surfaces such as you find on wooden or tiled floors where slight angles to the groove are passively adjusted to the groove.

  I worked extensively on small robotic vehicles in the 80's and 90's. My undergrad thesis was on a robotic simulator.

• by chiph on 3/16/20, 8:45 PM

  I'm on my second Roomba, and they've been great. What impressed me was how strong the suction was. My initial thoughts were "How can something that small ever pick up as much dirt as my regular vacuum?" But it actually does better than the upright - it picks up far more dirt/cat-hair, even when the upright is on a fresh filter. Which is important with a long-haired cat - I get cat-hair tumbleweeds on the stairs. I sweep them manually down to the next floor, and hit the start button and leave for work. I return to a freshly vacuumed floor.

  Ob. cat tax: https://imgur.com/a/JHBue4Y

• by bane on 3/16/20, 7:14 PM

  We bought my aging mother-in-law an iRobot mopping robot a couple years ago. It still works great and has freed up 30min to an hour of time per day she spent cleaning up the floor (they're Korean and spend a great deal of time doing activities on the floor so floor cleanliness is very important).

  More importantly, her legs and back aren't doing so well these days and it's eliminated a painful and difficult daily task for her. She loves it almost as much as a pet. Just set it up and forget it for the next hour and the floor is mopped! The biggest problem it has is getting hung-up on her grandkids toys.

• by trqx on 3/16/20, 11:27 AM

  Looks like I cannot comment on dev.to but @deciduously should definitely give netlogo a try: https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/

  See existing models here: https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/index.cgi

  You can share your results as HTML if that's your thing.

• by Damogran6 on 3/16/20, 12:29 PM

  I Bought 2.5-ish Roombas, maybe paid MSRP for one, and bought (and repaired) a couple of refurb units off Woot a decade or so ago.

  It was an interesting exercise, and if our pet-load was a little lighter (I'd hate to see it get caught in Macaw Poop) I'd consider doing it again.

  But.

  They do wear and there was maintenance, and the batteries did lose capacity, and I eventually wandered away from them because there was a lot of labor in a labor saving device.

  Maybe a mop for the trailer?

• by Mandatum on 3/18/20, 2:50 AM

  The brushless motor on my original Xiaomi Robovac died and I was able to order a new one and install it myself from AliExpress for under $50. Big fan of Xiaomi products, even with their poor brand reputation. RoboRock is an off-shoot that's done really well, best-in-breed for most consumers.

• by mrvenkman on 3/16/20, 1:38 PM

  In the UK you can currently buy this model for £179.99: https://www.eufylife.com/uk/products/variant/robovac-30c/T21...

• by noodlesUK on 3/17/20, 3:54 AM

  I’d love a robotic vacuum. However, my house is not very flat. It has two main floors, but several rooms are offset from the main floors by about a foot or two (who knows why). Is it possible to put a small ramp on the stairs and tell the vacuums how to navigate it?

• by aabajian on 3/16/20, 12:51 PM

  I have Eufy and a tiny 450 sq. ft. condo. I'm still amazed at how much dirt the vacuum picks up. 15 min of manual vacuuming is nothing compared to 2 continuous hours. Now that I have a dog, for $200, it's a no-brainer. When I come home it's a noticeable difference.

• by tasubotadas on 3/16/20, 12:49 PM

  I have exactly the same model and I had exactly the same experience. I was mesmerized by the device to see how it would reach my entire apartment following really simple algos.

  Also, I also had very little expectations in the beginning (just a bit less dust) but it did really amazing job.

• by cx0der on 3/16/20, 2:09 PM

  I have a older model of Neato, it uses a lidar to map out the floor. First it traces the boundraries of the room or 10ftx10ft if it can't find a wall within that distance and then follows a rectangular path adjusting for any obstacles it finds in its path.

• by syntaxing on 3/16/20, 5:39 PM

  I totally agree with this! My spouse was making fun of me for staring at our Neato for almost its whole cleaning session. Watching the 2D LiDAR work while the robot does the path planning is absolutely fascinating to me for a machine that is less than $400.

• by d_runs_far on 3/16/20, 5:25 PM

  Hardwood floors + large hairy dog + robo vacuum = less dog hair floating about.

  I seriously don't know how we kept our sanity before having one of these. We really notice it if we don't run it some days.

• by Simulacra on 3/16/20, 3:29 PM

  It is bewildering why I will stop what I’m doing to watch my robot vacuum move around the floor. There is no rhyme or reason that I can figure out.

• by mentos on 3/16/20, 3:31 PM

  How do robotic vacuums handle the frills on carpets? I've got a carpet in my room that I think could defeat his enthusiasm haha

• by sytelus on 3/16/20, 12:29 PM

  Future generations will look to us in amusement that in 2020 only thing robots could do people’s home was vacuuming.

• by mirimir on 3/17/20, 1:01 AM

  Huh, so am I the only one seeing analogies to the behavior of some of my subsystems?

• by mrlala on 3/16/20, 4:21 PM

  Love love love the Neato vacuum. With small kids, it has changed my life.

• by KaoruAoiShiho on 3/16/20, 11:14 AM

  googled it apparently eufy is a brand of anker. suddenly not surprised by the price/quality.

• by z3t4 on 3/17/20, 7:25 AM

  Random is hard to beat.

• by sam0x17 on 3/16/20, 11:28 PM

  learn about SLAM that's the algorithm they all use

• by mattlondon on 3/16/20, 1:51 PM

  Same here - we got a Neato one and I'd end up just standing there watching it. Totally fascinating - more than once I even got it out to show to people visiting! n:)

  The Neato ones are a bit more methodical - they have a simple time-of-flight rotating laser sensor that does some SLAM-style stuff to map out the room which means it can do long continuous back-and-forth paths across the room (random image I found that explains it nicely: https://www.generationrobots.com/img/cms/Navigation-Algorith...) It has a charging base thing - it has a special pattern of stripes (kinda like a barcode I guess) behind a human-opaque panel that it uses to locate the charger.

  While it was nice to just set the thing off and leave it to do its thing, it is not without problems though:

  - it would very happily suck-up and chew cables or errant socks etc, and/or push low stuff around in front of it (e.g shoes). You had to spend time picking up phone charging cables and shoes etc before starting.

  - it was not very accurate when it came to working around slanted chair/table legs (since its laser beam would only pick a point approx 5cm off of the ground, it would often hit the lower part of the leg that was in its path but that it could not see)

  - it would often get stuck "under" things since there was about 1.5cm of extra height above the laser, and it feels like a lot of IKEA furniture is all just high enough for it to drive under and get wedged because it could not see it.

  - it would sometimes get stuck in situations where there was a very tight space between two things (e.g. dining chair and a wall)but where in theory it was wide enough for it to drive down - it would end up trying to reverse out, but actually managing to reverse into the wall and jack its self up so the wheels lost traction.

  - it does not know if it has "missed" something or done a good job, so often stubborn bits of fluff don't get picked up.

  We've now had to retire ours because we got new carpets and it seems to get stuck a lot on the new carpet that is a bit thicker, often doing wheel spins for 30 seconds at a time. This seems to really confuse the SLAM algo since after it regains traction it ends up just driving straight into walls and stuff, despite having a laser sensor to tell it there was a wall there ... I guess it used some sort of encoding from its wheels as input too (perhaps as a effort to ignore "unexpected" laser returns - e.g. perhaps intended to ignore people pets when it has already mapped a room?)

  We've replaced it with a dyson cordless stick vacuum thing with a wall-charger-dock thing. It doesn't take that much longer to do it by hand when you factor in the prep-time (picking up cables, moving dining chairs away from the table, moving things far away out from the wall etc etc), rescuing stuck robot time, or manual pick-ups of things it missed required afterwards, and then moving all of your chairs etc back into position. It is also nice to not have to bend down so much to move the robot one around, or empty its dustbin.

• by weeboid on 3/16/20, 2:25 PM

  Author completely lost me at "I'm gonna keep her" … the ability to type that sentence out into the public domain. #smh

• by KarlKemp on 3/16/20, 11:55 AM

  I’m immediately put off by the second ‘graphs being fully devoted to publicly putting his girlfriend in her place?

  We learn it’s „impulsive“ for her to make spending decisions (for him it would have been „decisive“, probably, given the good opportunity and how quick he is to think on his feet). He even moans about being „incapable of being upset“, as if it would be entirely normal, nay expected, to be upset about one‘s spouse making a sub-$200 spending decision.

  Then he decides to „keep her“, as if it’s entirely his choice.

  Yes, sure, somewhat outdated role models by themselves are somewhat benign, and probably too widespread to really get upset about. But this just stood out for me, somehow. Try reading it with reversed roles if you did not notice.