[Electronics-Talk] Robot vacuum good with dog fur

[Aaron Spears]

Hi.


Neato bot vac that doesn't say connected in the name anywhere are good 
for just working without needing an app. One of the non connected models 
has a touch screen though so look out for that.


If you like having an app well enough, the Roborock s6, s6max or s7 seem 
to work well on Android but I'm not sure about iOS. I can't customize 
the map it makes or set my own no go zones and such, but I can keep up 
with maintenance and  check status and receive alerts for maintenance 
items and/or error messages.


As far as being good for furr, the roborock is fairly decent because it 
has a silicone blade in between the bristles, but it will still wrap 
carpet stands around itself. They're easy to get off especially since 
the brush roll is easy to remove and you can remove the bearing from one 
end of it so that you can more easily unwind strands. A cutter tool is 
under the hood area on top that you can use to aid in carpet strand or 
long hair removal. I can sort of set the schedule, it's a bit messy but 
I can do it with a little finaggling.


Ours is the Roborock S6. You can use Roborock machines with Mi Home or 
with the Roborock app. Both work but I like the roborock app better 
especially after a recent update made it more Talkback friendly.



I think the best deal at the moment is Dreametech W10 Robot Vacuum 
Cleaner and Mop, Sweeping, Mopping, Washing and Drying 4in1, Robotic 
Vacuum with Superb Lidar Navigation, 4000Pa Strong Suction for Pet Hair, 
Hard Floor, Carpet : Home & Kitchen (amazon.com) 
<https://www.amazon.com/Dreametech-Cleaner-Sweeping-Mopping-Navigation/dp/B09994T1NB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5ZYMEHS9M27B&keywords=dreame+d10+vacuum&qid=1651453982&sprefix=tractor%2Caps%2C125&sr=8-1> 
but I'm not sure how accessible the app is for it. If it uses the Mi 
Home app, that is reasonably accessible. Anyway 4k suction is really 
strong. Some reviewers claim it picks up things their Dyson upright 
didn't, and most everybody claims those things are awesome. I'd be very 
tempted to give it a try if I were you because the suction alone may 
have a significant impact on how good it is at taking care of fur.


For blindies, the iRobot Roomba 980 was very famous for its exceptional 
user friendliness to us. It's no longer manufactured but can sometimes 
be picked up from the Amazon wearhouse renewed for tiny fractions of the 
original cost. I am unaware if newer Roomba models that have VSLAM 
navigation remain as friendly, but they are expensive. LiDAR navigation 
is more reliable for the most part, so I have been sticking with those. 
The Neato models almost all have LiDAR, so do most of the Roborock and 
Dream models.


LiDAR uses one or more lasers that spin around in circles usually in a 
turet on the top of the robot. It simply returns a measurement of how 
far away the nearest detected obstruction is. Since LiDAR is a laser 
light itself, it doesn't require your lights to be on. If you keep the 
lights off and curtains closed, a VSLAM navigation machine will have a 
chance to have a lot more trouble keeping track of where it's at. VSLAM 
navigation usually uses a camera installed on the top of the robot that 
points upward at the ceiling and recognizes where it is by matching the 
camera image with its database. As such, VSLAM needs a little bit of 
light. LiDAR will do a better job figuring out where it is if you move 
the robot and then do something where it needs to know where it is. For 
instance the Roborock S6 can find its way back to the dock if you pick 
it up and put it many rooms away as long as it has the room it is in 
mapped or is able to find a room that is on the map within a certain 
amount of time. I would definitely lean strongly toward using a LiDAR 
system.


There are other navigation methods, like the random bump and turn and 
some other cheaper options, but LiDAR and VSLAM, in that order, are at 
the top of the hill. The Roborock S6Max combines cameras (not VSLAM!) 
with LiDAR. The cameras look forward and enable it to identify specific 
objects and circumnavigate them if they are things that wouldn't be safe 
to approach, like dog poop. They also can place pins on the map where 
things have been found that may not be supposed to be where they are, 
like a sock under the bed. I'm not aware whether that experience is 
accessible to us.


That model also lets you view the camera feed in the phone app and 
remotely drive the robot around and you can see what the camera can see 
on the phone screen as you drive. Handy to wander around and see if 
somebody's home yet or how the dog's doing or what ever. I'm pretty sure 
that's mostly not usable by the blind. The price is a little hefty for 
the s6 max and the s7 but they are the pick of the crop in every way, 
generally outperforming models that cost twice as much. We've had ours 
since Black Friday of 2020 and it is scheduled to clean every day. It 
still works like the first day we had it, better since the mapping has 
improved a little. It gets stuck maybe twice a week, but we have many 
cords laying around to trip it up. Dog toys don't tend to bother it, it 
just runs over them, not picking them up, or nudges them along until 
they slide out of the way. It's really a fantastic device. Roborock S6 
is what I'm referring to.


What ever you do, get a device that has whole home mapping. It's not 
really worth getting a robot that doesn't have it. It won't do as good 
as you can do on your own, and it'll constantly get lost and stuck and 
you'll have to chase it all over the place, and it'll often not be able 
to find its charger.


If you need a really cheap model that has whole home mapping, Tesvor 
makes some cheap ones as does 360. The 360 s6 (not to be confused with 
Roborock S6!) comes to mind. Accessibility unknown. If you do get one 
that you think we don't have info on yet in terms of accessibility 
please bend our ears with your  findings.


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

On 5/1/2022 2:24 PM, Tracy Carcione via Electronics-Talk wrote:
> I've been thinking about a robot vacuum, maybe.  Is there one that's good
> with dog fur and, of course, is accessible?  I would include as accessible
> having to push a button, but I'm also OK with iPhone apps.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Tracy
>
>   
>
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