A Roomba smeared dog poop. There's an economic lesson here

vox.com

11 points·ArtDev··4 comments

Here's an idea: Add more sensors to the robot vacuums. Improve their navigation abilities so they don't run over toys. Implement sensors that detect dog poop and vomit, or puddles on the floor, and have the vacuum avoid them.

These are all problems that can be solved with basic engineering solutions.

The only lesson to be learned here is that there is a ton of room for improvement with the current set of robot household helpers.

Not everyone thinks Neato is better. I tried both, and the Neato got stuck every time in certain areas of my home so that it was totally unusable. The Roomba, although it has issues in other areas of the house, at least works pretty well. Also, despite the Roomba's "chaotic" approach to navigating, it works. The Wirecutter, for example, thinks it's a better navigation system, and if you look at a light painting done with a Roomba you can see it covers an area pretty well: http://lightpaintingphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/...

Finally, I have an older model, but the new Roomba 980 includes a camera so they are working on new navigation tech, albeit slowly and at crazy high prices.

Isn't this a technological lesson? The Roomba is at the novelty stage rather than being a mature tech? I can't predict how long it will take for a mature equivalent to arrive but I certainly wouldn't rule out all home automation because the Roomba is lacking in many areas.

Unless something thinks there's a huge technological gap to cross?

The only problem I have with my Roomba is guests always freak out "Isn't it going to fall down the stairs?!?"

Other than that it works quite well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com