So, how many people have seen news blurbs or some type of commercial for the Roomba? Touted as the first mass-market robot for the home. It's a 4" tall saucer-shaped thing powered by a NIMH battery that circles around your floor, follows walls and generally wanders around cleaning house.

http://www.roombavac.com/
http://www.irobot.com/

It'll go for up to 90 minutes on a tile or wooden floor and perhaps about 60 on carpet between charges.

I hate vacuuming. This thing is looking very interesting. Interesting enough that I'm willing to pop the $200 to let it wander around my new appartment every morning (mostly hard-wood flooring with a bit of tile and an area-rug I've yet to buy).

So far I've seen only one negative review, but that guy's place was not at all typical to what I'll find myself in now or ever as far as I'm concerned.

It doesn't have an ethernet port and as far as I know can't accept custom software or play mp3's. One thing I do wish it had was the ability to go back to its charger when low on power, charge itself up and keep going. Now that would be ideal.

But I suppose it's the first generation consumer product, so there's room for these frills to come in a future version. Intersting nonetheless. Especially for lazy bastards such as myself.

Bruno

I may need this thing. I am the ultimate lazy bastard and my apartment is on the market. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I'm not sure how this can be claimed to be the first robot cleaner, as Dyson have had one for a long time.

http://www.dyson.co.uk/range/feature_frame.asp?model=DC06

I seem to recall it runs ARM Linux, and one of the developers is (or was) an active empeg owner. Unfortunately more offer to swap a car player for one was turned down .

Rob

Discover How Roomba automactically cleans floors ...

Yes, that's right: ``Automactically.'' And in a graphic, no less. Reason enough to avoid it right there.

How do iRobot claim to have the first product in the marketplace? Because they do.

This is directly from the site Rob posted: "The DCO6 is currently on home trial."

The Roomba, on the other hand, has been available at retail since the start of October at least. Now to do more research on this British autonomous vac... Hmmm...

Bruno

One of my cats really wants to kill it. The other one is terrified by it.

It's a good start, but like you said, it should go back and recharge itself when it's done. I'd like it better if it went room to room without assistance too.

It works well on wood and tile parts of the floors, not so good on the carpet, which really doesn't matter to me since the only room in the apartment that's carpeted is my closet. My living room is a little too big for it, and it won't work in there any more after the area rug comes back from being cleaned, since it only works on thinner carpets.

I'd prefer it if they made a mop that works like this personally. It still sounds like a vacuum cleaner, which is what I hate about vacuuming. And the floors just look better after being mopped.

But it was still a pretty cool gift.

Do you mean that it doesn't pick up dirt well on the carpet or that it doesn't travel well on the carpet or something else on the carpet?

I did some reading on the Dyson site Rob posted and then started doing more Dyson research on the web. Damn, I'm impressed by their vacuums and washers. They're just debuting now in the US.

Their robot vac has some huge pluses and also some huge minuses. It's an actual vacuum and not just a sweeper. That's a big plus. It has great suction power and comes from a company that has proven itself in the vacuum industry. It looks neat enough to get attention. but, it's also fairly tall and definitely will not go under as much furniture as the sleeker Roomba. It wouldn't go under my bed for instance. And one great thing about the Roomba is all the praise I've seen it get for cleaning the little spots that people generally miss or don't clean often enough. If I get one, I plan to run it at least every two days. Anyway, the Dyson's charge also only lasts 30 minutes - understandable considering it's a powerful vaccum, but even more reason to have it charge itself. It method of navigation is very different from the Roomba. It seem much more methodical by description. Anyway, the Roomba does seem like a fairly practical (for some) toy. BTW, do a search in usenet (using Google) for "Roomba" and then sort by date. There have been at least a couple of people post some useful tips for tweaking it and getting the most out of its cycles.

I think this market has huge potential. It just needs a couple of products like this to get the ball rolling. Sort of how I felt about handhelds when the Newton was introduced. That market has matured in many ways, but I think it's about to get explosive over the next couple of years.

Bruno

Do you mean that it doesn't pick up dirt well on the carpet or that it doesn't travel well on the carpet or something else on the carpet?

It doesn't seem to pick up dirt too well. It's also a black carpet, which is a nightmare to try and keep clean in the first place.

Hi there,

so a year has gone by, has anybody else than Heather bought a robo-vac?
Any experience with roomba or the other ones like:
electrolux trilobite
kärcher robocleaner
dyson dc06

I want one, the roomba is cool looking at the price, but the robocleaner has all the features i want (charges himself and empties his bin himself...). But it costs about 1400 Euros
For me i think the roomba will do it to start with.

Other recommendations?

cheers, Thomas

electrolux trilobite

Now that's a cool name. Pity it looks nothing like one!

Peter

I have no idea which one is the best, but this is a review of the Roomba, FYI.

some of you might show a passing interest in this

That Robocleaner looks really cool.
It even goes back to the charger to auto-recharge and to empty its bag.
I can't find it available in the US though

I got a Roomba in May or so. I'm tempted to get one with the remote control (Roomba Pro?) and sell the one I have, for no reason other than extra toy value.

Works reasonably except in some weird corners, and of course you're S.O.L. if you care about steps.

electrolux trilobite

Now that's a cool name. Pity it looks nothing like one!

A friend of mine had started preliminary design of a Robot Wars robot called the Trilobot; shaped like one, it would have been pretty hard to tip over or get into. We couldn't decide on the range of armaments, though - I wanted a un-trilobite-like spiked tail, and he wanted a forward axe.

The fact that I live in Australia and he lived in the UK (and now in the States) didn't make our collaboration any easier...

Paul

You remind me how much I miss the Robot Club and Grille