[chbot] Robotic Sweepers

Tue Jun 25 22:20:15 BST 2013

I demoed my Neato VX11 robot vacuum at a meeting several months ago.
The Neato uses a laser to accurately map its surroundings and then slowly
vacuums each area of carpet exactly once.  I (and more importantly, my
wife) are extremely happy with it's performance in a house with 2 kids and
a shedding dog.  I bought it for $240 US to integrate into my visual
programming language 12Blocks, now my wife won't let me touch it.

Comparing the power requirements between two very different usages doesn't
tell you much.  I suggest that it takes exponentially less power to vacuum
at a slower speed.

I also imagine that vacuums aren't designed to be efficient- given that
they're heavily marketed by how much power they use (waste).
When was the last time you bought a vacuum that was advertised with a lower
Watt rating than the competitor?
Hanno
--
http://onerobot.org

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Richard Jones <rjtp at ihug.co.nz> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 10:11 PM, Helmut Walle <helmut.walle at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On 25/06/13 19:36, Richard Jones wrote:
>>
>>> I noticed that Bunnings have a Robot Sweeper listed in their last
>>> catalogue for $99. They seem to be out of stock in the Tower Junction store
>>> at the moment. Anyone have views on this style of cleaner? Looks more of a
>>> gimick than practical use to me, but it is a lot cheaper than a Roomba and
>>> at first glance does the same job. Also not as quick at clearing cans from
>>> the table as Lego Mindstorms for those with long memories :-)
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?**v=2eWeI59_Qpk<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eWeI59_Qpk>
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Views? Yes, I have some general views on robotic vacuum cleaners for
>> residential environments, and also some specific questions regarding the
>> model shown in the video. Just some quick background: about a decade ago, I
>> was a commercial cleaner for a few months, and in that role I spent ample
>> time vacuuming (for the American readers: hoovering, or for the
>> brand-aware: luxing) vast expanses of carpet, polished rock, lino and other
>> surfaces. Now the beautiful thing about this kind of job is that it doesn't
>> require much thinking, and so you have your mind available to contemplate
>> and consider whatever you want. And obviously the natural thing for an old
>> telecommunications and embedded systems engineer to think about is how to
>> improve the job he is just doing by adding a little bit of innovative
>> technology, and that obviously means thinking about self-cleaning windows,
>> catalytically cleaning ovens, cleaning robots and the likes.
>>
>> So, at that time I didn't know much about cleaning robots, but I thought
>> it would be great to have one to do all this mindless and under-paid work.
>> I had a few quick ideas on how to develop suitable robots, but being
>> marketing-minded I also went and did a bit of a market survey. I found at
>> the time that there were several companies offering cleaning robots, some
>> for residential use, some for commercial applications. The differences
>> between the available machines were as great as the differences in
>> requirements between the two: the robots for residential applications
>> looked very much like show-off toys for people with too much money, who
>> already have the Audi and the Porsche and the Boat etc. and need yet
>> another gimmick to stand out among their equally possessions-saturated
>> friends (oh, and if you have any doubt regarding the practical usefulness
>> of these machines - Oprah actually gave one Roomba to each of the
>> participants of one of her shows back then, and there were lots of "Ohs"
>> and "Ahs" from the audience). The machines for commercial applications on
>> the other hand were not only much bigger, but they clearly looked like they
>> had been designed with one objective in mind: to get the job done, to do it
>> well, and to do it fast.
>>
>> So far, so good - now let's look at some general technical questions that
>> I would like to raise, and you can probably answer them yourselves:
>>
>> * A good vacuum cleaner (just a traditional one, like this model used
>> commonly by commercial cleaners: https://www.nilfisk.com/en/**
>> products/Pages/product.aspx?**fid=14963&Name=GD%201005%**20220-240V%20EU<https://www.nilfisk.com/en/products/Pages/product.aspx?fid=14963&Name=GD%201005%20220-240V%20EU>- and, declaration of conflict of interest: I've got absolutely no stakes
>> in Nilfisk, but I have used some of their products, and they were good and
>> reliable for what I needed! ) has a rated power of somewhere above 1 kW,
>> and according to the spec for this example it will suck with 270 W at the
>> end of the tube. Now this is some serious power, and it is actually needed
>> when your kids have been playing dress-up party, and all the hair from the
>> wigs has gone into the carpet... But with these small robotic home vacuum
>> cleaners like the Dirt Devil and others, where is that power going to come
>> from? Well, it isn't... Soooo... the suction power of these things is
>> probably quite limited, and that will limit their ability to clean the more
>> interesting areas.
>>
>> * A good professional cleaner (a human, that is) actually sees what is
>> dirty and what is clean, and they will quickly complete the less dirty
>> areas, and treat the badly dirty ones (where the kids have trampled over
>> the carpet with their muddy wellies, thus densely compressing the liquefied
>> soil into the depths of the carpet) as long and intensely as necessary to
>> get them clean. But how does a robot know what's clean and what's not?
>> Well, I have a list of ideas of how a robot could know this, and I think
>> several of them are quite feasible, but I doubt that many of them are
>> implemented in these cheap home vaccuming robots. Soooo.... the robot may
>> manage to get everywhere eventually, but does that mean everything will be
>> clean?
>>
>> * With a good vacuum cleaner (see above again for example) I can
>> continuously vacuum moderately dirty carpets for several hours before I
>> need to replace or empty the dust bag. Now that bag actually takes up quite
>> a big volume inside the vacuum cleaner, certainly a multiple of the dust
>> compartments of any of these home vacuuming robots. So even if they had the
>> suction power to properly clean the floor, how often would you have to pick
>> them up to empty the dust compartment? And it is not that manufacturers
>> wouldn't have seen this issue: the Kärcher Robocleaner (
>> http://www.karcher.com/int/**Products/Home__Garden/Vacuums/**
>> Robocleaner/12691010.htm<http://www.karcher.com/int/Products/Home__Garden/Vacuums/Robocleaner/12691010.htm>) for example works with a base station, to which the mobile robot
>> automatically returns when it either needs to recharge its battery or feels
>> the need to empty the dust into the 2-litre dust compartment of the base
>> station (that's about the size of the dust bag of a "normal" vacuum
>> cleaner, well, the Nilfisk example above actually has even more than twice
>> that much). So they have positively addressed some of the questions and
>> concerns. If you are considering other models / manufacturers, check how
>> they are addressing these issues...
>>
>> And now a couple of points more specifically regarding the Dirt Devil:
>>
>> * It's all very nice to see how clean it sweeps the already very clean
>> looking tiled floor. BUT, how does it perform on high-friction moderately
>> heavy carpet?
>> Oh... I've just looked it up and found that it's not meant to be used on
>> carpet at all: it is officially called a "Hard Floor Vacuum" - well that
>> means for me personally it's not even worthwhile looking at any further,
>> because I am wiping and mopping hard floor, which produces much better
>> results than any dry vacuum can. So no carpets with this one...
>>
>> * If you are still interested, I would recommend reading the customer
>> reviews on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-**
>> Devil-RoomMate-Robotic-Vacuum/**product-reviews/B005I5OTTA/**
>> ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=**UTF8&showViewpoints=1<http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Devil-RoomMate-Robotic-Vacuum/product-reviews/B005I5OTTA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1>
>> I haven't read them in much detail but the overall stats do look a bit
>> sad to say the least. Look here for a fairly detailed review of the Kärcher
>> Robocleaner http://www.robotreviews.com/**reviews/k%C3%A4rcher-**
>> robocleaner-rc3000-review<http://www.robotreviews.com/reviews/k%C3%A4rcher-robocleaner-rc3000-review>
>>
>> Well, I could go on, but this is probably enough to give you an idea of
>> the kind of points to look at (not meaning to be exhaustive in any way, but
>> rather only providing some examples), and to show that a conceptually
>> simple thing like cleaning floors actually is mildly complex when you look
>> at the practical reality of environments to be cleaned and the respective
>> requirements for machines that are supposed to do a good job.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Helmut.
>>
>
> Helmut,
>
> Thanks for such a detailed and thought provoking post. Looks like robotic
> vacuum cleaning is not going to be solved by spending $99 at Bunnings this
> week. Having read your post, the various reviews and seen the videos
> robotic cleaning looks like quite an interesting challenge.
>
> Richard
>
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