iRony
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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A Boring Dystopia
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Funnily enough my Roomba is the ONE thing I rely on to argue against the "robotic uprising". When people fawn over 1X’s Neo or Tesla humanoid I can happily testify that as relatively long term mobile robot owner... it sucks! In theory it's amazing right, in theory you program it, go out while it clean the place, go back to charge itself, etc. So much free time for you now, right?
No... you need to make way for it. You need to actually setup the place for such a basic task. Think you can just "wing it" and let it work while you sip on a cocktail outside? Sure, come back to find it in an enraged BDSM session, rope all over it as it pulls over a char with cable entangle deep inside.
Honestly it's like AI more broadly : the concept is so simple to understand and the result is something we ALL want... that every single time there is an improvement, no matter how small, we love to speculate that truly this time we are getting "close" to make it work. Truth is, we have no idea of the complexity of the problem.
Related https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dexterity/ who did make Roombas and more.
It sucked you say?
While it cuts?
I often use scanner / printers as an example. Its like a robot with a very specific and easy job - feed the paper through one sheet at a time. They've been around for 40 years, mass produced, they still cant reliably do that one thing.
With a lot of tech, it seems like solving the first 90% of a problem is easy, then the next 5% very hard and expensive, but the last few percent is impossible.
We see this with so many things - printers, roombas, self driving cars.
With a lot of tech, it seems like solving the first 90% of a problem is easy, then the next 5% very hard and expensive, but the last few percent is impossible.
Definitely, that's why I do prototyping. The first 90% is super fun and empowering! It's exhilarating. You start to believe you could do anything. Then... the remaining 90% get harder, and harder, until you're done it and the very last 90% is even harder! /s
My best buy ever was a $ 20 "dumb roomba": It was just a little ball with a battery inside that made random movements, and you could put it in a little "cage".
It did a horrible job, like a 5 year old half-assing it, put hey - $ 20, 0 effort for a little help? Everything was slightly less dusty and hairy, and it pushed most of it into the corners. Saved like 3 minutes per day.
Is ot noisy though? My cheap robot is so fuckyn noisy!
No, it was also quiet. More quiet than the < $ 100 cheap sweep robots with rotating brushes that actually attempt to capture dirt in a compartment inside.
Sad end, though: One day, it decided to just roll away and we never found it again. We thought it'd be under something, but when we moved out a few years ago, it became clear that it decided to find a new home long ago.
Ohh so its purpose is to push dirt to the corners so you clean it up later? Doesnt seem that bad. My robot is one of those with dumb spining brushes and minuscule dirt compartment.
Got a Roomba for my previous place and it eventually sabotaged itself by scratching the cover of the alignment beam for docking until the unit could no longer align itself with the station. It was an obvious bug in the system, but iRobot wouldn't provide any customer service without extensive repair costs.
That was the end of my adventures into home robotics.
This pic always confused me. The outlet should have had two running throughout the day for redundant cleaning duty just to show off the technology. It shows a lack of confidence in the product.
Probably liability issues. Some customer doesn't see it, steps on it, and face plants into the floor then they get sued.
Put a tall little flag on top of each. Well, draw attention to them somehow, not that hard.
It's legitimately because they are gimmicks. They will never get your floor as clean as a push broom. They replace the lowest hanging fruit of the cleaning cycle which is already very easy, which doesn't require you to move things out of the way. If you actually want a clean house, the robot vac will do about 10% of the work.
Lol, no.
Without my roborock I'd have cat hair everywhere.
You either don't have pets or you enjoy sweeping every day. Either way, it's obviously not for you, but that's no reason to be disparaging about the tech.
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I have very little home automation, but a vacuum robot is one of them and they work great. Mopping and vacuuming.
It's tedious work out of our hands and I'd say it's more than 10% because you have to do it all the time.
She's not cleaning because the floors dirty, she's just trying to pass the time, when I worked at a small shop that got fuck all customers, I cleaned that floor so much, I think I stripped the top layer off.
Yep. Working clothing retail on a slow day? Time to fold and refold a lot of shirts just to do something other than stand behind the counter looking dumb.
other than stand behind the counter looking dumb.
jokes on you I look dumb no matter where I'm standing.
Is there really nothing else you can do than that Sisyphean task?
Bring a book or something?
Unfortunately, the work culture here is so ass-backwards that would get you in trouble. The whole "if you have time to lean you have time to clean/ I'm not paying you to stand around" exploitative nonsense. You must look busy and act like you are doing work at every possible second for the boss's pleasure, less they feel they aren't getting a return on their "investment".
It comes from an old school "Protestant work ethic" which has been a pervasive sickness in American culture since its foundations.
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After a couple of hours you start hoping some shithead kid comes in and messes the store up so you have something to actually do.
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This is what their customers will be doing in 6 months when they have to shut down the app.
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This image is 10 years old - I bought the 980 (top shelf, third from the left, highest model pictured) as my first bot. Black friday 2016.
For anyone wondering, iR bots have great smarts but suck ass for hardware. I went through a total of 6 iR bots across 3 models, spending up to 1.6k USD for a model (and extended warranties by the store, which I used every time each failed, again, out of warranty). Oh and iR customer support is staffed only by certified assholes - I'm a disabled tech enthusiast and literally every single person I spoke to, both phone and email, was a condescending motherfucker. Every, last, one.
I've tried almost all the brands sold in the US, and I prefer Neato, which was bought by a German company and killed, so uh... that's great. Shark is absolutely literal garbage, the one I bought failed after 28 days, Ecovacs are designed to fail after about 9 months of moderate use every other day (a wheel will start to fail to rotate, causing it to go I'm circles; two models, 3 units, across 2.5y did this). I'm testing a Roborock that has been okay so far, but it's only been in use for two months...
Usually, extended warranties are bullshit. Here, I implore you to get one if you're getting a bot. I'm now on bot make/model 8 (not counting replacements of the same model!), in 9 years. Seriously.
Anyway, 'lol funny picture'.
My Roborock has been serving me well for over a year, even the home assistant integration has been painless. I’ve never had a different brand so reading your post makes me feel very fortunate. I actually recently ordered some new rollers and mop pad and was pleased how serviceable it is.
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Nah. Got a Roomba for cheap 10 years ago, still does it's job. But man is that thing dumb. I'm no expert but i'm sure even i could do the algorithms better.
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Neato was bought by Vorwerk and as far as I can tell, the Kobold VR7 is a successor to Neato‘s robots. So it doesn’t seem to be all that dead. The VR7 has great hardware but it’s software is a bit lackluster.
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iRonic
The perfect anti-publicity.
It's like ray-eee-aaaaaaiinnnnn
Lol.
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