[Electronics-Talk] Robotic Vacuum Cleaners Info Request

Sat Dec 3 21:12:01 UTC 2022

Hi.

If you need a cheap one with whole home mapping, Tesvor has some. Next 
up prise-wise with whole home mapping, 360's s6 and similar models. 
Neither of these models are tested for accessibility by me. We have and 
like a Roborock s6 and like it. If we had it to do again we would 
probably get the Roborock s7 max if we could afford it. They are 
expensive. You can get a cheaper Roborock S4 which is just as nice as 
the Roborock s6 but without the mopping feature which, on the s6 is kind 
of a gimmick anyway. Mopping is better on the s7max.

Roborock are compatible with the Xiaomi Mi Home app if you prefer it, 
but their own Roborock app is usable except for marking up the map on 
your own. Roborock maps the home every time you run it by traveling 
around the parameters and then it fills in each room on the created map 
as it goes. If you schedule a run you can easily enough tell it which 
map you want to use. You have just enough usability to be able to save a 
map and call it up for the scheduler later. More useful if you have a 
multiroom house or are moving it from house to house. You can set it 
down somewhere and start cleaning and it will try to map its area and 
turn itself off near to where you started it. This works especially well 
for a room if you close the doors or put obstructions to keep it in 
there. It'll understand that it's cleaned everything and while it may 
try at first to find the charger when that happens, it'll figure out 
that it can't reach it and turn off roughly where it was when you 
started it. It is not the best for manually moving it around and 
expecting it to run just in a room. 360's machine supposedly can 
understand a room and avoid leaving the room if you use room cleaning 
mode. While Roborock has a room cleaning mode, it will still exit a room 
if not blocked off, it just changes the cleaning behavior. Room clean is 
also not available as a physical button, only in the app. Roborock would 
probably work with no WiFi if you needed to. It builds the map onboard 
before attempting to clean. I think the downside to that would be that 
it can't learn to stay out of tricky areas. After getting stuck a few 
times in the same places ours with internet access like it has will tend 
to get skiddish and avoid those same mistakes. If we move the charging 
dock though we have to have it redo the map and it has a lot of trouble 
for a week or so until things settle down again.

If you notice that a scheduled clean doesn't seem to be including a 
certain room, it could be that it missed that room the last time you 
manually started it using the cleaning button or that room was closed 
off. Sometimes it will add the new room to the stored map in the 
scheduled run scenario but not always. Best way to get it added is to 
start a clean manually using the clean button on the machine. It'll run 
with no assumptions then. Some people report success placing it in the 
room it misses and starting a clean using the clean button with the door 
open so it will wander out of there and hopefully add it to the map in 
the process.

Couple of things to keep in mind.

1. don't get a dumb robot unless you have a tiny house or trailer or 
just want it to do one or two rooms. Dumb robots aren't aware of their 
location and just turn around when they reach an obstruction. They're 
not absolutely terrible, but in my opinion, as a blind person, I don't 
want one that's not systematically making an attempt to get every inch 
of the floor as best as possible. The cheap ones turn at sometimes 
random angles and just go off willy nillie hopefully getting everything. 
As it stands, they tend to always miss certain spots but meanwhile run 
over the same spot they just did a couple of times. Furthermore, they 
don't know where their charger is, and just wander around until they can 
see its infrared beam and then hope they can line up with the charger.

Robots with whole home mapping actually create a digital understanding 
of the layout of your home, and are able to figure out where they are 
and actually color in, litterally, the whole map as they go. They're 
aware of every inch they've already cleaned and are actually able to 
make a bee-line for places they haven't covered yet. You can start most 
units anywhere in the home that have already mapped it and they will be 
able to ascertain where you put them and can account for it. Ours will 
find the dock even if we set it on the other end of the house and hit 
the dock button. It even can work in some really obscure situations like 
if it's only a few feet from the dock but has to make a giant c shaped 
path around in completely the wrong direction and turn a few corners and 
thread between some furniture to reach the dock.

2. Between all the available mapping methods, I highly recommend LiDAR. 
Light imaging distance and ranging. It's a laser turret that spins and 
measures distances to obstructions in all directions all the time. LiDAR 
can't see glass, so sometimes if you have a glass storm door they will 
get confused thinking they should be able to go through that doorway. 
Ours has gotten stuck on the doorstep a few times and been unable to get 
off it again until someone drug it. Otherwise however, LiDAR is 
exceptionally accurate and works just fine for blind people with no 
lights on in pitch black weather. LiDAR also can't understand that a 
thin sheet won't actually be an obstruction, but VSLAM can encounter 
that issue too. You just hope the robot can gently approach what it 
thinks is an obstruction annd see if the bumper on the front triggers an 
impact or not. Some units do that and some are more tentative.

VSLAM visual simultaneous localization and mapping is usually the form 
of a camera on the top of the robot facing upward toward the ceiling. It 
tries to recognize things above the robot in order to determine its 
location. It can still work in low light for some robots but they do 
have more trouble in very dark areas. VSLAM is more common with Roomba 
and Hoover. Neato, Roborock, 360 and Tesvor use LiDAR. Theoretically, 
VSLAM is lower cost, but it doesn't show up that way when you buy the 
product.

There are some variations on this, like roborock's s7 max's combination 
of LiDAR and a couple of visual cameras that are forward facing and can 
recognize things like poop that should not be vacuumed, etc. There's an 
improved version of the dumb robot that uses higher precision gyro, 
possibly a compass, and some trickery to try to do whole home mapping 
with the cheaper parts. However, Tesvor's whole home mapping is in that 
price range and so is kind of hard to argue with.

All of the models can suck up cables. We had a Deabot that tried to 
account for the issue by placing wires every inch and a half over the 
surface of the brush roll that would in theory prevent a cable from 
getting up in there, but it still happened. Our roborock sucks up socks 
and then proceeds to run around with a brush roll that can't spin. 
Sometimes it will trip an error other times it won't. It's not a matter 
of if but when something like this will happen. Our roborock S6 sucked 
up a bunch of dog poop. We've since had it apart  and discovered there 
wasn't that much wrong in the wheels other than a thick piece of cotton 
that somehow got above one of them and was creating friction on that 
wheel so that it couldn't spin and thus causing the robot to just spin 
around in circles when it wanted to go. It's been vacuuming every day 
for 2 years and still works well. You are a little too late to get a 
good deal, these things get crazy good deals on Black Friday. However, 
if you don't mind a used one, Amazon Renewed has some interesting 
offers. They used to have the exceptionally friendly Roomba 980 for like 
$120, they cost about $1000 new.

However, the normal cost of Roborock S4 is around $400 and if there's 
any sale at all you'll be into the $300 range. the 360 company has the 
s6 for under $400. If you want to try a Tesvor they have whole home 
mapping for under $200 or right around it. Neato has some lower cost 
options, and all of Neato's machines have LiDAR whole home mapping. 
However some Neato units have a touch screen. You are probably good if 
you choose the Neato that doesn't have internet connection, but I don't 
know how accessible it is to set a schedule for that machine.

Keep us in the loop.

Cheers:
Aaron Spears, AKA Valiant8086 General Partner at Valiant Galaxy Associates "we make (VERY GOOD AUDIOGAMES) for the blind comunity" http://valiantGalaxy.com

On 12/3/2022 2:50 PM, Sherry Gomes via Electronics-Talk wrote:
> I have a roomba, level 9 series. I am not fond of it actually, but I have hard wood floors though my house and a dog that sheds a lot. I don't like how loud it is when doing its job. And it's a sound that hurts my ears. It does an okay job, for the most part, but I often have to pick it up and get the dog hair out of its wheels and rollers. Also, once it tried to suck up electric cords which it shouldn't do. I can't find what they call barrier strips or bumps for it which tells it to stay out of certain areas.
>
> The app is pretty accessible, except that I need sighted help to mark up the map. If I could get that done, I could set it just to vacuum the living room, for instance, which is actually where most of my dog's hair is! Lol.
>
> I had another brand originally, called Trifo. I liked it better. It was definitely quieter, and it seemed to do a bit better job on the dog hair. But though several of us tried, we could never get it to link up to its own app, let alone to Alexa, which it was supposed to be able to do.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Electronics-Talk <electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Rebecca Degeorge via Electronics-Talk
> Sent: Saturday, December 3, 2022 11:34 AM
> To: electronics-talk at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Rebecca Degeorge <rebeccadegeorge09 at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Electronics-Talk] Robotic Vacuum Cleaners Info Request
>
>       I am considering purchasing one of these, and want for it to be accessible and also able to pick up dog hair. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
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