Bad Roomba!!!

June 20, 2003 at 1:12 am

I bought a Roomba this week.

It’s a $200 robotic vacuum cleaner made by a company named iRobot (wonder if Asimov’s
estate gets any fee from that). Works pretty well at finding its way around the room,
though the first time we ran it, it bumped into a picture leaned up against the wall.
The second time it bumped against the wall, the picture fell, and landed on Roomba.
Roomba got stuck, and shut off.

After that, Roomba got scared and went and hid under out bed at the other end of the
house.

Review: Well, two sessions does not a good product make, but if you’re willing to
sweep the pizza boxes and cans to the side, it does a pretty good job, and it’s fairly
amusing to watch. You do have to hook it up to a charger (somewhat a bummer), but
since you have to empty the container fairly often anyway, making that purely automatic
wouldn’t help much. A pretty sophisticated device.

If I’m going to keep anthropomorphizing the thing, it really needs a better name.
If you have suggestions, let me know.