[Electronics-Talk] Roborock Vacuum

Sat May 25 02:38:16 UTC 2024

I'm not Aaron, but yes you can do this.  It will make a map of your upstairs 
as well and when it is done, it will go back to wherever you started it. 
Then you can take it back downstairs and change maps and have it go back to 
the dock.

Kay Malmquist
kay.malmquist at gmail.com

"Abundance flows into your life when gratitude flows out of your heart."
- Jon Gordon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tracy Carcione via Electronics-Talk" <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
To: "'Discussion of accessible home electronics and appliances'" 
<electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: <carcione at access.net>
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2024 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Electronics-Talk] Roborock Vacuum

Hi Aaron.
I would want it to clean mostly downstairs, and have the dock downstairs, 
but can it deal with it if I sometimes take it upstairs to clean, while 
leaving the dock in its usual place?
Thanks for all this info.
Tracy

-----Original Message-----
From: Electronics-Talk <electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of 
Aaron Spears via Electronics-Talk
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2024 11:09 AM
To: Tracy Carcione via Electronics-Talk <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Aaron Spears <valiant8086 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Electronics-Talk] Roborock Vacuum

Hi.

I can answer  the hard floors question. It does great on those. That's 
practically all that we have, much to my displeasure. We don't have the
q5 however, ours is an older and much more expensive S6. In my opinion just 
from reading about it the Q5 is a much better option for less money besides.

In general, you don't really have issues with the wheels tracking dirt, but 
you can pick the bot up and try to clean off the wheels every now and It 
won't mind being placed upside down while you work on it. It probably does 
have a button in the turret that helps it determine if it has wedged itself 
under something that is pushing down on the turret and thus could be forcing 
the turret to not be able to spin, but when it's not running, it won't pay 
attention to that.

You can snatch it from the floor even while it's running, and when the 
suspension on the wheels unloads it will pause itself. When you resume it 
with the start clean button, it will aquire its position before proceeding, 
a process that will not work if it's not yet mapped your place, so avoid 
picking it up if you can during first run. You can drag it without picking 
it up if it just got stuck on something that you can free it from without 
needing to get at its underside.

Like I said to Kay earlier, you'd want to straighten up the house pretty 
nicely before first run, because if you can help it at all, you want it not 
to be dealing with extra confusions until the map is created. After it gets 
the map going, you can relax and it should be able to deal with the normal 
shenanigans. Things to think about are mostly going to involve cables being 
in the way, doors that are closed that you want it to go through and map 
what's behind them, furnature that's sitting in different places than 
normal, dog toys or other stuff that would possibly get it stuck, etc. It'll 
eventually get to the point where dog toys are not actually a problem 
generally, you just need it to hopefully finish mapping without getting 
interrupted and without having to start over because it got confused about 
where it was and such. You can move furniture whenever you want but if you 
move like everything, it may get confused. You'll know because it'll run 
longer, get in a situation more often or may be unable to find the dock. You 
can keep running it and hope it figures it out again or you can delete the 
map.

On the default map where the dock is, it will get all confused if you move 
the dock, so try to think ahead on that. If you are running it from the app 
or a schedule, sometimes you can get better results in terms of needing to 
figure out the map again using the physical start clean button on the 
machine itself.

It maps every time it runs. You'll get used to knowing what it's doing.
It goes counter clockwise around everywhere that it can access first, doing 
a boarder clean for one, and understanding its environment for another. It 
keeps its right side next to the perimeter that it can move in, turning 
right when ever it can, and if it  comes up to something in front of it 
while something is right of it, it'll then turn left or do the 180. In that 
way, it'll go clockwise through every room and eventually do a complete 
circuit of its environment that way. Only when that finishes will it start 
going across the rooms doing the normal clean. This is how it can sometimes 
figure itself out if you do bad things to its environment, but sometimes if 
you mess with things a lot to make rooms seem completely different it may 
have to bs it, which may or may not eventually result in the map being 
updated to match the new layout.

What ever you do, get a smart one with whole-home mapping like that Q5 has, 
and I personally recommend that you go for LiDAR mapping and not VSLAM or 
any of the other versions, but VSLAM works too if you must. If you hadn't 
heard, LiDAR uses a laser light that's not visible to humans, it spins the 
laser light around and measures how fast the receiver in the turret can see 
the laser bounce back from the nearest object.
Certain things are invisible or confusing to LiDAR like Chrome reflective 
surfaces and glass doors, but for the most part LiDAR has been the most 
reliable option. VSLAM looks up at the ceiling with a camera and tries to 
recognize the location by recognizing the image it sees against the library. 
In theory that sounds better, but it can fail in really dark environments 
like we blind folks may often have.

LiDAR means light image distance and ranging.

VSLAM means uh, Visual simultaneous learning and mapping? Something like 
that anyway

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

On 5/24/2024 7:57 AM, Tracy Carcione via Electronics-Talk wrote:
> Thanks!
> I forgot to ask, do you have pets?  How does it do with fur?
> I don't care about mopping, but does it vacuum hard floors, like the
> kitchen?
> Tracy
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Electronics-Talk <electronics-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of
> Kay Malmquist via Electronics-Talk
> Sent: Friday, May 24, 2024 4:49 AM
> To: Discussion of accessible home electronics and appliances
> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Kay Malmquist <kay.malmquist at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Electronics-Talk] Roborock Vacuum
>
> Hi Tracy,
> I love the little critter.  He has mapped the house, both upstairs and
> downstairs and does a great job.  I would not really recommend the Q5 for
> mopping because it does what is called a passive mopping because the mop 
> pad
> doesn't move, just the vacuum does.  There are other models of the 
> Roborock
> that do a better job of that.  This one also does not empty its own dust
> bin, but for the price it does a phenomenal job.  I have a friend that 
> knows
> his stuff when it comes to these robotic vacuums and if you want to know
> which one is best for your needs, he is the person to ask.  I have no
> regrets about buying this one.  You can adjust the amount of suction as it
> cleans.  There are some things like the maps that aren't accessible but it
> does a good job of putting that together.  You have to move things out of
> the way for it, but you have to do that while you clean with a normal vac 
> so
> this isn't really anything more than you would do otherwise.  There are
> Roborocks that mop very well and go to the dock and empty and clean the 
> mop.
>
> They also have self emptying dust bins and that is a nice feature if you
> want it.  Overall, I am totally satisfied with the one that I have now.
> Hope this helps.
>
> Kay Malmquist
> kay.malmquist at gmail.com
>
> "Abundance flows into your life when gratitude flows out of your heart."
> - Jon Gordon
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tracy Carcione via Electronics-Talk" <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> To: "'Discussion of accessible home electronics and appliances'"
> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: <carcione at access.net>
> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2024 5:59 PM
> Subject: [Electronics-Talk] Roborock Vacuum
>
>
> To the person who recently bought a Roborock Q5, Kay?, how is it going? 
> Are
> you happy with your purchase?  Has it proved to be sufficiently 
> accessible?
>
>
> I am seriously tempted to get one myself, but I'm still not sure.
>
> Tracy
>
>
>
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