My Very Own Vacuuming Peasant (Warning: Robot Content)

14 years ago

A few weeks ago, I watched an episode of "America's Test Kitchen" in which they gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the iRobot automatic vacuum cleaner. ATK's testing is pretty credible to me, so this got my attention.

Then we stayed with some friends who have two of the Rhoombas working in their house and auxiliary building. I watched the robots work and noticed that, although my friends are not enthusiastic housekeepers, their floors were nicely clean.

When my wife saw the Rhoomba 550 at Costco, we decided to give modern feudalism a try. For $280 we now have our own robotic peasant slaving away on the ground floor of the johnliu estate.

My 13 y/o got the job of reading the manual and setting up "Robbie". I programmed the robot to vacuum every day at midnight. My son amuses himself by commanding Robbie to work during the day as well, sometimes carrying stuffed animals. There are no days off. It is a merciless existence for our robotic slave.

So far, we are quite pleased with his work. The layout here is challenging, with lots of furniture looming, chair forests, cul-de-sacs, and other traps and obstacles. Robbie so far has about a 80% track record of finding his way home to his recharging dock before his batteries give out. We've twice had to rescue him from box canyons and place him back on his dock.

He does not have much suck-power, relying more on beating brushes and rubber scrapers, but even so, each time he runs, he fills his bin with dust, lint, dirt, cat hair, and other schmutz. Apparently we are not as un-slovenly as we thought. SWMBO says it is because I've been living as a piggish bachelor for several weeks. I say the house is always this way. Although, I say it to myself.

As you Asimov fans know, robots are supposed to obey the Three Laws.

"1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."

We haven't had a chance to see if Robbie would, let's say, self-destruct rather than stub a human's toe. But I have faith in his gentle touch with piano legs and carpet edges. The cats are learning to ignore the intruder. I wasn't having much luck leashing them to the canister vacuum anyway.

Bottom-line, the ground floor now gets partly vacuumed every day, and it takes me less than a minute each time (emptying the bin, maybe replacing the robot on his dock). I can live with this.

FYI, for the curious, here's how these things work. The robot's movement is mostly random. It might vacuum the dining room, the living room, the foyer, etc, it is all up to chance. It has some preprogrammed behavior to work its way around obstacles, will spiral around particularly dirty spots, can detect large obstacles well enough to slow down before bumping them, and knows not to leap off cliffs - stairs, if you will. When the battery runs low, the robot starts looking for the infrared light on its dock; if it repeatedly runs out of battery before reaching the dock, it starts looking for home a bit earlier.

Basically, think of how a beetle moves, blindly guided by its feelers, and that's a Rhoomba.

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Comments (16)

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Very nice robotic slave!

I am surprised that for the price it does not have a memory system to remember the shape of the rooms so that it could do a more efficient job. Electronics for Inertial navigation system, motion sensors (accelerometers) and rotation sensors (gyroscopes) are not expensive, you even find them in toys.

dcarch
lindac
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
A good friend had a rhoomba......what I found was the schmutz in the corners stayed in the corners....as the Beast doesn't do corners.....after about 6 months, it can be pretty groaty in the corners....unless you help out with a broom now and then.
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John Liu
Original Author
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I also thought it would have some memory. Some sort of machine vision would be cool, as would an internal accelerometer like you mentioned.

My friend who has the two Rhoombas, an engineer type, has observed his 'bots extensively. He thinks that furniture being moved, temporary obstacles like luggage and clutter, people picking up the unit, etc would make giving the machine a sense of location fairly challenging.

The answer may be financial. IRBT's gross margin is only 40%, and the retailers who sell the Rhoombas probably make 30% gross margin on a $300 retail price unit, meaning that 'bot can only cost iRobot $126. After freight and labor, actual budget for the components in my Robbie might be $80 or so. That probably limits how much processing or sensing hardware the machine can have. These things aren't produced in the scale of, say, iPhones.
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
John, if you can find out what kind of motor the Rhoombas uses.

Typically it would be a perminent magnet high speed motor.

If it is a regular PM DC motor, don't run the vacuum too often. a regular PM DC motor is not very long lasting.

If it is a brushless PM DC motor, it will last much longer.

In any case, the rechargeable battery has a limited cycling life, the more you use, the shorter the life. It costs about $50 for the battery.

One problem with ATK reviews of appliances, they can't test durability.

dcarch
jessyf
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Your cats are learning to ignore the intruder? They don't know what they are missing! Show them a few clips from any of the following Youtube clips, LOL

Here is a link that might be useful: Cats and Roombas
dedtired
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Jessy, that's the first thing I thought of -- cats riding around on Roombas. Wouldn't you think it would send them running for cover? I've never understood why cats love to be vacuumed, either. My old cat was in nirvana when she got "dust busted".

Here is a link that might be useful: dust busting the cat
John Liu
Original Author
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
The innards of a Rhoomba. http://www.flickr.com/photos/todbot/sets/72157594503966502/detail/
Gina_W
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
LOL, my dog would have a fit if we got a Roomba! I have friends who have had these for a long time and love them.

Unfortunately for me, my home layouts have not been amenable to the Roomba :(
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
The thing has many motors:

1. A geared motor for the roller brush.

2. A geared motor for the corner brush.

3. Two motors for the drives.

4. A motor for the vacuum generator.

With the exception of the drive motors, which seem to be quality motors, all the other motors are typical inexpensive motors that you would find in toys and hair dryers.

I do not think the machine can vacuum well. The motor for the centrifugal impeller vacuum generator is too small to create strong suction.

I think it is a very good machine to have to do some general light cleaning. It seems to me more of a sweeper than a vacuum.

I think it may be a good idea not to run it too often, the motors are not easily replaceable.

dcarch
dedtired
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I like that it can vacuum under the furniture. I can only reach so far with my canister vac. I do see how corners would be a problem, though. I would enjoy sitting on the couch while the DW does the dishes, the washer does the laundry and the roomba does the vacuuming. No only if the D would empty itself, the Washer/dryer also fold and out away and the roomba empty the dirt.
Olychick
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I bought one last year. I hate to vacuum and decided to try this as an auxillary to my regular (irregular really) vacuuming. I am so happy with mine.

His name is Ramone. He vacuums naked for me.
triciae
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
We've had a Rhoomba for about 8 years - got him a year, or so, after they first came out.

I LOVE him! The little bristles do okay in the corners if you use him frequently. Probably not so much if the floor hasn't been vac'd in a month. Ours has been used 3-4 times/week ever since he's been a member of our household.

I'd love to have one that returns to his charger but since he's still working - well, you don't toss out a family member just 'cause they are a bit long in the tooth! :)

dcarch, we've had no problems with the motors. We've had no problems of any sort. It takes a couple minutes to clean after each use but we've got it down to less than 3 minutes for maintenance.

One thing we did have to do was replace our area rugs with the no fringe type but that was in need of doing anyway. Rhoomba does NOT like fringe. Sometimes he disappears & we have to go on a search/rescue mission but that has gotten better the longer we've had the little guy.

Enjoy your new family member, John. :)

/tricia
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
"-----dcarch, we've had no problems with the motors. We've had no problems of any sort. -------"

You are lucky.

PM DC motors are interesting, the same motor can have a long running life or a short one. This has to do with how the motor is treated in the very beginning of operation. The carbon brushes of the rotor (commentator) need to be seated properly, if not, they die young. I will not go into the details of the many ways a motor's carbon brushes can be properly seated in a small appliance.

dcarch

Here is a link that might be useful: Seating carbon brushes
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Thanks to auto Spell Checker.

Should be "Commutator"

dcarch
triciae
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Well, I'd rather be "lucky" than good! (grinning & patting Rhoomba on his head)

/t
foodonastump
14 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Close to 1000 Amazon reviews, average 4 stars.

My Very Own Vacuuming Peasant (Warning: Robot Content)

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dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

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My Very Own Vacuuming Peasant (Warning: Robot Content)

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